Flow

Although Csikszentmihalyi acknowledges there are psychological and neurological impediments to experiencing "flow," he attacks 20th-Century Western culture for fostering the belief that happiness and fulfillment are materially rooted and outside the self.

"So my reactions have probably made clear that I found this book captivating. I will be re-reading it every year or so, I expect.

Flow” is much more than just a practical guide for leaders -- it’s essential.Rather than being idle, doing what you love is a pathway to greater meaning, happiness, and a self of higher complexity.Csikszentmihalyi says that it is best to think about the universe in terms of order and chaos (entropy). That healthy human beings find order pleasing is a clue to its intrinsic value, and to its role in the creation of happiness.The bringing of order to consciousness, “control of the mind,” is therefore the key to happiness.

The author claims that flow is a major key to happiness. A person in flow is a happy person, and thus directing one's life on a path to being in flow as much as possible is desirable. Clearly, flow is possible not only in computer programming. In fact, one of the author's goals is to explain how a person can and should find flow in practically every activity he's engaged in. More specifically, flow can be achieved in both physical and mental activities, both with people and alone, and both at work and during leisure. The book covers all these topics, based on interviews and research the author and his group conducted with thousands of individuals world-wide. The research quite literally asked people what made them happy and dissected their answers to common "clusters".”

“Csikszentmihalyi is fairly explicit about the nature of the activities that are most conducive to this sort of growth. They offer an opportunity for deep concentration, a sense of control and satisfaction, behavior that is goal-directed and bounded by rules, and the disappearance of concern for the self. When these conditions converge, we experience what the author calls "flow. A "flow" experience, unlike the passive experiences of shopping, watching television, taking drugs (all of which tend to numb or distract us from our feelings), generally leads to that "greater complexity of consciousness," continually expanding our sense of who we are. And it feels good, for we become the architects, not the recipients of our life's meaning.” Los Angles Times