quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

""A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.""
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life)

"The psychic entropy peculiar to the human condition involves seeing more to do than one can actually accomplish and feeling able to accomplish more than what conditions allow."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)

"We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"Control of consciousness determines the quality of life."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)

"These examples suggest what one needs to learn to control attention. In principle any skill or discipline one can master on one’s own will serve: meditation and prayer if one is so inclined; exercise, aerobics, martial arts for those who prefer concentrating on physical skills. Any specialization or expertise that one finds enjoyable and where one can improve one’s knowledge over time. The important thing, however, is the attitude toward these disciplines. If one prays in order to be holy, or exercises to develop strong pectoral muscles, or learns to be knowledgeable, then a great deal of the benefit is lost. The important thing is to enjoy the activity for its own sake, and to know that what matters is not the result, but the control one is acquiring over one’s attention."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life)

"If one has failed to develop curiosity and interest in the early years, it is a good idea to acquire them now, before it is too late to improve the quality of life.
To do so is fairly easy in principle, but more difficult in practice. Yet it is sure worth trying. The first step is to develop the habit of doing whatever needs to be done with concentrated attention, with skill rather than inertia. Even the most routine tasks, like washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn become more rewarding if we approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. The next step is to transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don’t like doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or something we enjoy doing but don’t do often enough because it seems too much trouble. There are literally millions of potentially interesting things in the world to see, to do, to learn about. But they don’t become actually interesting until we devote attention to them."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life)

"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."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"Since the purpose of business is to satisfy existing desires, or stimulate new ones, if everyone were genuinely happy, there would be no need for business any longer."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"The rules themselves are clear enough, and within everyone’s reach. But many forces, both within ourselves and in the environment, stand in the way. It is a little like trying to lose weight: everyone knows what it takes, everyone wants to do it, yet it is next to impossible for so many."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)

"..Such practices and beliefs, which interfere with happiness, are neither inevitable nor necessary; they evolved by chance, as a result of random responses to accidental conditions. But once they become part of the norms and habits of a culture, people assume that this is how things must be; they come to believe they have no other options."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)

"It might be true that it is “quality time” that counts, but after a certain point quantity has a bearing on quality."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)

"But shortcuts are dangerous; we cannot delude ourselves that our knowledge is further along than it actually is."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life)

"Socializing is more positive than being alone, that’s why meetings are so popular. People don’t like being alone. That would be, however, an important skill to learn..."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life)