Okay…so-so…average…good…fair-to-middling…each of these synonyms, whichever you choose, expresses roughly the same idea, but what if there was a word that captured a deeper, truer meaning, especially when spoken? It’s simple for us to say “Okay” (we even have an emoji and hand signals), but the crisp syllables of those letters fail to express the same meaning as speaking the word “Meh.” Communicating a greater sense of attitude, answering the inquiry, “How are you doing?” with “Meh” indicates a state of being that fails to be verbalized with “so-so.”

It’s this sense of Meh-ness that I feel articulates the foundation for issues such as Mid-Career Malaise, or any extended period of time when life just feels average. All of us, at some point in life, will be able to relate to this Meh feeling, and in the past, it would have likely occurred in different Seasons of Life and at different times; however, the COVID pandemic is forcing many of us to experience this feeling of Meh at the same time as many others within our sphere of influence. Adam Grant explains this Stuck In-Between phenomenon to the New York Times, “It wasn’t burnout — we still had energy. It wasn’t depression — we didn’t feel hopeless. We just felt somewhat joyless and aimless. It turns out there’s a name for that: languishing. Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021.”

As an educator in the discipline of wellness, understanding this feeling of Meh, or languishing, is vital to identifying the approach needed to move forward to a state of well-being, or flourishing. “In psychology, we think about mental health on a spectrum from depression to flourishing. Flourishing is the peak of well-being: You have a strong sense of meaning, mastery and mattering to others. Depression is the valley of ill-being: You feel despondent, drained and worthless… Languishing is the neglected middle child of mental health. It’s the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either. You’re not functioning at full capacity,” shares Grant.

It’s in situations like this, when experiencing the Meh days of life, that cultivating all Five Habits of a Flourishing Life can be useful, but particularly, by focusing on the Habit of Resilience, we are nourishing the growth of perseverance and passion. In future posts (Take Courage and Everyday Faithfulness), I hope to share more practical steps on overcoming this feeling of Meh (malaise, languishing) that might be impacting our health, but today, I hope we can all find solace in something as simple as having a name for the emotion we are feeling.

“Psychologists find that one of the best strategies for managing emotions is to name them. Last spring, during the acute anguish of the pandemic, the most viral post in the history of Harvard Business Review was an article describing our collective discomfort as grief. Along with the loss of loved ones, we were mourning the loss of normalcy. ‘Grief.’ It gave us a familiar vocabulary to understand what had felt like an unfamiliar experience. Although we hadn’t faced a pandemic before, most of us had faced loss. It helped us crystallize lessons from our own past resilience — and gain confidence in our ability to face present adversity,” offers Grant.

As I circle back to the inquiry from the opening that is often a part of our daily communication, “How are you doing?”, my hope is that we might consider using a different answer. Grant suggests, “Instead of saying ‘Great!’ or ‘Fine,’ imagine if we answered, ‘Honestly, I’m languishing.’ It would be a refreshing foil for toxic positivity — that quintessentially American pressure to be upbeat at all times.” When we can reply with an expression like, “I’m Meh,” perhaps the inquirer might pause a bit and dig a little deeper into the situation.

Now, I certainly don’t want to become a “Debby Downer,” the phrase my friend Laci used last week, but there are appropriate times when Holding Space for a friend, a colleague, a family member, means allowing them to express that they are feeling Meh, and perhaps Humbly Listening can be the perfect antidote for moving forward from languishing to flourishing.

Would you consider sharing a Meh moment with us in the comments below. Perhaps learning about others’ coping strategies can help us to healthily respond to our next Meh moment.

Reference:

Grant, A. (2021, April 19). There’s a name for the blah that you’re feeling: It’s called languishing.” New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html