Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

weighing heavily on his mind. One evening a few days earlier he noticed on arriving home from work that one of his tires was quite low. Next morning the rim of the wheel was almost touching the ground. Julio would not receive his paycheck till the end of the following week, and he was certain he would not have enough money until then to have the tire patched up, let alone buy a new one. Credit was something he had not yet learned to use. The factory was out in the suburbs, about twenty miles from where he lived, and he simply had to reach it by 8:00 A.M. The only solution Julio could think of was to drive gingerly to the service station in the morning, fill the tire with air, and then drive to work as quickly as possible. After work the tire was low again, so he inflated it at a gas station near the factory and drove home. On the morning in question, he had been doing this for three days, hoping the procedure would work until the next paycheck. But today, by the time he made it to the factory, he could hardly steer the car because the wheel with the bum tire was so flat. All through the day he worried: “Will I make it home tonight? How will I get to work tomorrow morning?” These questions kept intruding in his mind, disrupting concentration on his work and throwing a pall on his moods. Julio is a good example of what happens when the internal order of the self is disrupted. The basic pattern is always the same: some information that conflicts with an individual’s goals app...