Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.
Psychologists
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Hungarian-American psychologist (1934-2021) who named flow, the state of deep absorption. With Seligman he co-founded positive psychology; his book Flow (1990) redirected the field toward designing optimal experience.
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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Other Quotes
The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times. The best moments usually occur if a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.
Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.
Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.
Related Quotes
The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times. The best moments usually occur if a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
-- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Education, education, education.
-- Tony Blair