Flow: The Classic Work On How To Achieve Happiness: The Psychology of Happiness

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

There is nothing wrong with following this genetic programming and relishing the resulting pleasures it provides, as long as we recognize them for what they are, and as long as we retain some control over them when it is necessary to pursue other goals, to which we might decide to assign priority.

when we follow the suggestions of genetic and social instructions without question we relinquish the control of consciousness and become helpless playthings of impersonal forces.

The “liberated” view of human nature, which accepts and endorses every instinct or drive we happen to have simply because it’s there, results in consequences that are quite reactionary.

Submission to genetic programming can become quite dangerous, because it leaves us helpless.

A person who cannot override genetic instructions when necessary is always vulnerable.

There is no question that to survive, and especially to survive in a complex society, it is necessary to work for external goals and to postpone immediate gratifications.

The solution is to gradually become free of societal rewards and learn how to substitute for them rewards that are under one’s own powers.

in addition to or instead of the goals others use to bribe us with, we de...

The most important step in emancipating oneself from social controls is the ability to find rewards ...

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 ...

We must also become independent from the dictates of the body, and learn to take charge of what happens in the mind.

Since what we experience is reality, as far as we are concerned, we can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness and thus free ourselves from the threats and blandishments of the outside world.

Marcus Aurelius wrote: “If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.”

the control of consciousness determines the quality of life

to free inner life from the threat of chaos,

those who take the trouble to gain mastery over what happens in consciousness do live a happier life.

The function of consciousness is to represent information about what is happening outside and inside the organism in such a way that it can be evaluated and acted upon by the body.

we might think of consciousness as intentionally ordered information.

The reflection consciousness provides is what we call our life: the sum of all we have heard, seen, felt, hoped, and suffered from birth to death.

intentions the force that keeps information in consciousness ordered.

Each of us has this freedom to control our subjective reality.

seems we can manage at most seven bits of information—

shortest time it takes to discriminate between one set of bits and another is about ⅛ of a second.

It is attention that selects the relevant bits of information from the potential millions of bits available. It takes attention to retrieve the appropriate references from memory, to evaluate the event, and then to choose the right thing to do.

The mark of a person who is in control of consciousness is the ability to focus attention at will, to be oblivious to distractions, to concentrate for as long as it takes to achieve a goal, and not longer. And the person who can do this usually enjoys the normal course of everyday life.

The shape and content of life depend on how attention has been used.

it is useful to think of it as psychic energy.

We create ourselves by how we invest this energy.

it is an energy under our control,

attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the q...

At any given time, we are usually aware of only a tiny part of it,

the self is in many ways the most important element of consciousness, for it represents symbolically all of consciousness’s other contents, as well as the pattern of their interrelations.

If attention, or psychic energy, is directed by the self, and if the self is the sum of the contents of consciousness and the structure of its goals, and if the contents of consciousness and the goals are the result of different ways of investing attention, then we have a system that is going round and round, with no clear causes or effects.

We have seen that experience depends on the way we invest psychic energy—on the structure of attention. This, in turn, is related to goals and intentions. These processes are connected to each other by the self, or the dynamic mental representation we have of the entire system of our goals. These are the pieces that must be maneuvered if we wish to improve things.