Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi > Quotes

“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

“A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“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

“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

“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

“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

“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

“The task is to learn how to enjoy everyday life without diminishing other people's chances to enjoy theirs.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“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

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

“Pain and pleasure occur in consciousness and exist only there”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“..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

“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

“the self expands through acts of self forgetfulness.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“it's a wise parent who allows her children to give up the things of childhood in their own time.”
― 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

“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

“It is better to look suffering straight in the eye, acknowledge and respect it’s presence, and then get busy as soon as possible focusing on things we choose to focus on.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“The essence of socialization is to make people dependent on social controls, to have them respond predictably to rewards and punishments.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“...they make us dependent on a social system that exploits our energies for its own purposes. ...If a person learns to enjoy and find meaning in the ongoing stream of experience, in the process of living itself, the burden of social controls automatically falls from one's shoulders.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“But religions are only temporarily successful attempts to cope with the lack of meaning in life; they are not permanent answers.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“We are always getting to live, as Ralph Waldo Emerson used to say, but never living. Or as poor Frances learned in the children's story, it is always bread and jam tomorrow, never brad and jam today.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“The last great attempt to free consciousness from the domination of impulses and social controls was psychoanalysis; as Freud pointed out, the two tyrants that fought for control over the mind were the id and the superago, the first a servant of a genes, the second a lackey of society - both representing the "Other".”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“The names we use to describe personality traits - such as extrovert, high achiever, or paranoid - refer to the specific patterns people have used to structure their attantion. At the same party, the extrovert will seek out and enjoy interactions with others, the high achiever will look for useful business conacts, and the paranoid will be on guard for signs of danger he must avoid. Attention can be invested in innumerable ways, ways that can make life eihther rich or miserable.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“...what the social environment told them to want...”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“But anyone who has experienced flow knows that the deep enjoyment it provieds requires an equal degree of disciplined concentration.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“Wealth, status, and power have become in our culture all too powerful symbols of happiness. ... And we assume that if only we could acquire some of those same symbols, we would be nuch happier.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“...the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback.”
― 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

“Первый историк Запада, грек Геродот, описал в «Персидских войнах», как три тысячи лет назад Атис, царь Лидии в Малой Азии, ввел игры с мячом, чтобы отвлечь своих подданных, когда в результате нескольких неурожаев начались волнения среди голодного населения. Он писал: «План противостояния голоду состоял в том, что один день они полностью посвящали играм, чтобы не думать о еде, а на следующий день они ели и не занимались играми. Таким образом, они провели восемнадцать лет».”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology Of Engagement With Everyday Life