"Do you ever feel like: You're teetering right on the edge of burnout? You want to make a higher contribution, but lack the energy? You're running faster but not moving closer to your goals? Everything is so much harder than it used to be? As high achievers, we've been conditioned to believe that the path to success is paved with relentless work. That if we want to overachieve, we have to overexert, overthink, and overdo. That if we aren't perpetually...

"Many workers believe that to compete with other top talent they must embrace a culture that rewards long hours and constant connection to work. Businesses and society have encouraged this by endorsing busyness, overwork, and extreme commitment as the most valued traits in workers. Sometimes that endorsement is explicit, as when Elon Musk told Twitter employees to work "long hours at high intensity" or get fired. But more often it's an implicit contract,...

"We're all familiar with the pressure to be the best and to do it all. Professionals are expected to be at-the-ready; parents are told to be ever-present; and everyone is exhorted to sleep enough, eat well, and carve out 'me time.' And underwriting all of these narratives is the American myth of rugged individualism, now amplified unlike ever before by the presence and use of smart devices that seem to literally give us the power to do it all alone....

"The Emory University sociologist who coined the term languishing-low-grade mental weariness that affects our self-esteem, relationships, and motivation-explores the rise of this phenomenon and presents a comprehensive guide to flourishing in a world that demands too much. If you're muddling through the day in a fog, often forgetting why you walked into a room . . . If you feel emotionally flattened, lacking the energy to socialize or feel joy in...