The Kindness That Keeps Us Small

The Kindness That Keeps Us Small | The Flourishing Journal The Kindness That Keeps Us Small When we care for someone, we often want to spare them difficulty. Sometimes the greater gift is to help them meet a challenge they can grow through. VCVictor Counted, PhDThe Flourishing Journal A recent Economist article argues that university for all harms poor students the most. Its headline raises a question that reaches well beyond higher education, and that is: What happens when an institution promises opportunity but does not give people what they need to develop their capacities? That question is one that we should extend to our homes, workplaces, churches, and communities.…

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The Sin of Calling a Human Being “Illegal”

Why Referring to Another Human Being as an "Illegal Alien" Is Ungodly and Evil | The Flourishing Journal Place & Belonging · Part II The Sin of Calling a Person "Illegal" Before a single home is burned or a single family is torn apart, a word has already done the work. The second essay in a series on the global anti-foreigner wave examines the vocabulary that makes it. VC Victor Counted The Flourishing Journal · July 2026 I want you to imagine a driver who breaks the speed limit on the way to work. We do not call him or her an illegal driver. Also consider a person who jaywalks…

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Wellbeing, Thriving, Flourishing — The Difference a Word Makes

Wellbeing, Thriving, Flourishing: Three Words We Keep Using as if They Mean the Same Thing? | The Flourishing Journal Flourishing Science Wellbeing, Thriving, Flourishing: Three Words We Keep Using as if They Mean the Same Thing? On wellbeing, flourishing, and thriving, and why mixing them up changes how we research, counsel, and help people. VC Victor Counted, Ph.D. Professor · Author · Psychologist · June 2026 · 7 min read A friend of mine treats the word ‘thriving’ the way most people treat the word ‘fine.’ It comes up every time we connect, unplanned, almost a running joke between us by now. He has a point. Three words show up…

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They Bombed the Cathedral. The Sky Is Still Open.

They Bombed the Cathedral. The Sky Is Still Open. | The Flourishing Journal Place & Flourishing They Bombed the Cathedral.The Sky Is Still Open. A study of religious believers reveals something unexpected about resilience: when the places we hold sacred are taken from us, a great many of us can still find holiness underfoot. By Victor Counted, Ph.D. The Flourishing Journal A refugee leaves a war-torn city. The mosque where she prayed is rubble. The streets that oriented her childhood are checkpoints now, or gone. On every conventional measure she has lost her place in the world. And yet she still has the moon that marks her prayer times, and…

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Three Mental Health Crises in Our World Today

Three Crises in Our World Today — The Flourishing Journal The Flourishing Journal Three Crises in Our World Today Identity, loneliness, and meaning look like three problems. I want to tell you why I think they are a problem of belonging. VC Victor Counted, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology, Regent University · Faculty Affiliate, Harvard Human Flourishing Program I have spent most of my adult life studying what makes people flourish. I have also spent most of my adult life trying to flourish. Some seasons it was easier. Some seasons it was not. What I can tell you is this. Something is hurting people in our day that was not…

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The City Promised Them Everything. The Data Say It Is Delivering Almost Nothing.

The City Promised Them Everything. The Data Say It Is Delivering Almost Nothing. | The Flourishing Journal The Flourishing Journal Youth & Place Global Flourishing Study  ·  City Satisfaction & Age The City Promised Them Everything. The Data Say It Is Delivering Almost Nothing. Young adults aged 18 to 24 are among the least city-satisfied groups on earth — in the very cities designed, marketed, and culturally narrated for them. Global Flourishing Study data across 22 countries ask why — and the answer implicates nearly everything about how contemporary cities are built. Victor Counted The Flourishing Journal What the city promised Opportunity. The place where careers are made, networks built,…

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Place Dissatisfaction and the Spatial Cost of Unemployment

Place Dissatisfaction and the Spatial Cost of Unemployment | The Flourishing Journal The Flourishing Journal Work & Place Global Flourishing Study  ·  Employment & Place Satisfaction Place Dissatisfaction and theSpatial Cost of Unemployment The unemployed are the least place-satisfied group on earth — ranking below immigrants, the divorced, and the young. They have not moved. Their city has not changed. Something else has. Global Flourishing Study data across 22 countries illuminate what unemployment actually costs, and why income replacement is only part of the answer. Victor Counted The Flourishing Journal May 2026 9 min read 65% Unemployed satisfied with their city #34 Lowest of all demographic groups studied 84% Employed…

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The Most City-Satisfied People on Earth Are Over 80

The Most City-Satisfied People on Earth Are Over 80 | The Flourishing Journal The Flourishing Journal Place & City Global Flourishing Study  ·  Place Satisfaction The Most City-Satisfied People on EarthAre Over 80 Across 22 countries and tens of thousands of respondents, the Global Flourishing Study surfaces a result that overturns almost everything we assume about age, cities, and the quality of urban life. Victor Counted The Flourishing Journal Research Report 93% Adults 80+ satisfied with their city 75% Adults 18–24 satisfied with their city 18pt Gap between oldest and youngest adults The Global Flourishing Study did not set out to say anything particular about the elderly. It set out…

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Your Earliest Relationships May Have Shaped How You Experience God

Psychology · Faith · Human Flourishing Your Earliest Relationships May Have Shaped How You Experience God By Victor Counted, Ph.D. Professor, Author, and Psychologist There is a question most people never think to ask about their faith. It is not a theological question, but a psychological one: where did your felt experience of God come from? Not the doctrine you were taught or the catechism you memorized, but the actual texture of your relationship with God—whether He feels close or distant, welcoming or demanding, safe or unpredictable. For much of the history of psychology, that question was either dismissed or spiritualized. However, a growing body of research at the intersection…

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