During her recent interactions with people from different walks of life – school principals to small retailers – Salma Prabhu, a Mumbai-based clinical psychologist, has come across very similar expressions from all of them. “Almost everyone talks about this feeling, that 'something is not right', 'God knows when this will get over', 'I feel so stuck', 'I feel like we are in a cage', 'I feel scared'. These are expressed by people from all strata of society,” she says. This feeling now has a label – “languishing”. 

A few days ago, author and organizational psychologist at Wharton, Adam Grant wrote an article for The New York Times titled: ’There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing.’ Since then the article has been widely shared and talked about on social media. In the article Grant mentions that the term was coined by sociologist Corey Keyes, who found that many people who weren’t depressed also weren’t thriving. “His research suggests that the people most likely to experience major depression and anxiety disorders in the next decade aren’t the ones with those symptoms today. They’re the people who are languishing right now,” mentions Grant.