As I was sitting here, staring at this (at this very moment) blank page, the doorbell rang. (I hope by the end of this, the page will be full of words and images. Will that happen? I guess we’ll find out.)
Turns out, it was one of the paper’s supporters, come to pass on a cheque so that I can continue to pay a kid to distribute the paper, (currently it’s my kid, but if more of you were willing to contribute, I could get a few more kids out there, beating the street), as well as reduce the paper’s reliance on advertising. (While I love all the companies and organizations who advertise, and I love being able to get their messages out there into the community, too, it is also nice to not be completely reliant on them.)
We talked for a bit, and he asked how life was. I waggled my hand in the universal signal for “meh.”
Because life? Has been pretty meh lately.
Part of it has been winter. While it hasn’t been as long or as hard as some recent winters, it’s been long enough. Hard enough.
Part of it has been that I haven’t had the time, energy, or willpower to get out as much as I’d have liked. While me and the dog have been out for walks twice daily, they’ve mostly been around the block. We haven’t done anything really…epic. We haven’t been out to Mount Hermann, because they’re putting a mine in there. We haven’t decided to hike three hours up a creek bed, just for fun. We haven’t even been out to the Boulder Gardens for a full moon snowshoe. All those things that I normally love to do in winter, haven’t been done.
Part of it has been the last two years, which have been hard. While I joked at the beginning of the pandemic that staying at home and avoiding people was my superpower, even us antisocial dweebs start to get tired of being locked in the basement after a few years.
So I understand the whole “let’s get out and par-tay” attitude that has been so prevalent the last few weeks, since the mask mandate has lifted.
But I’m not really a party person, so that doesn’t really sing for me.
I’m not even feeling a great deal of excitement for this editorial. So I’m going to go looking for something about overcoming the Mehs. Hang on…
Okay. I’m back. I’ve found a post over at Blawsome.life.
(First reaction: Blawsome is a terrible name. Are they going for blah-some? Probably not. It is a platform for “wellness creators.” They are probably going for a portmanteau of Blossom and Awesome, and not, you know, Blah and some.)
Anyway. The unnamed writer over there says that Meh? Is really just languishing, and languishing is “the feeling of being stagnant or stuck, unable to move forward. It differs from burnout in that burnout is also associated with exhaustion, which languishing is not. You might feel perfectly energized, calm, and supported, but still feel like tomorrow doesn’t matter because it’s just another variation of today. That’s languishing.”
Okay, sounds legit.
The writer goes on to say that “In psychology, mental health is thought about on a spectrum: depression to flourishing. Languishing is the space in between depression and flourishing – a lack of feeling ‘well,’ to put it simply.”
So, not quite full-on depression. Just not feeling like I’m flourishing.
I’ve had this conversation with a few people in my life who are feeling the same way. This sense of being caught in a space between.
The French, who always have a funny, French sounding word for everything (which makes sense, I suppose, seeing as they are French, after all) might call this feeling “ennui,” which is “a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.”
Though it seems that ennui is chronic meh-ness, which I don’t think quite captures it. But I can see how one meh day could slip into another like pebbles into a pond, to become ennui.
A sociologist named Corey Keyes came up with the term languishing to describe a rather large group of people he was seeing who weren’t showing the typical mental illness signals: they weren’t depressed or anxious, they just weren’t flourishing like he might have expected.
So, how does one get past a case of the mehs? Well, according to the Blawsome blogger, realizing that you are not alone is a good place to start.
By realizing that you are not alone, we can start to recognize the feeling and begin to normalize it. If this affliction is common to man, it’s easier to recognize it in others, and to help them deal with their mehness, and accept their help with your mehness.
Blawsome also recommends finding your flow. Flow is that state of losing yourself in something enjoyable, from cooking to painting to playing music to running and even playing video games where you look up and it’s three in the morning.
Of course, if you’re already busy with life, another way to help is to take a break. “Immersing yourself in work without interruption is not going to alleviate your feeling of lacking progress because it doesn’t address the source of the feeling,” says the Blawsome Blogger. “Give yourself the grace you need to build breaks into your daily routine. Give yourself permission to journal for a half hour every morning, let yourself take an afternoon walk to reenergize. With consistency, you can reinspire yourself toward your goals.”
Finally, Blawsome says set goals. This will help bring meaning back into your day to day. “Setting goals, even small goals you know you will accomplish, can help remind you of the meaning of your effort. With an extra five minutes spent on a goal every day, you can make massive progress.”
So, if you’re feeling meh like me, remember, you are not alone, remember to find your flow, give yourself grace and a break, and set goals for yourself tomorrow.
I believe in you. You got this.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
