One of the best books ever written about what constitutes happiness. Take a look at my book review and a short video summarising the book
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University, California. He is Director of the Quality of Life Research Centre at the Drucker School and former chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago, where he also taught psychology. For more than thirty years he has been involved in research on the positive aspects of human experience – joy, creativity, the process of total involvement in life, which he calls “Flow”. "Flow" is NOT a step-by-step book that gives you tips on how to be happy. Instead, the book summarises years of research, into general principles along with examples of how people have used them to transform their lives. The hope, then, is that the reader will have enough information in the book to make the transition from principles and theory, to actual practice. I found this book captivating. It’s not an easy read, but if you stick to it and if you’re willing to use your brain and imagination, it is worth every little bit of effort you put in! Flow goes beyond the ever expanding literature on issues of “Positive Psychology” by poignantly and practically identifying ways to structure one’s life to give it greater richness and meaning. I believe getting a grasp of the concepts of what constitutes flow activities are critical for the psychotherapist’s training, supporting the patient by bringing greater clarity to the individual’s values and life purpose while building self belief to get there. The conditions for the ideal flow activities are that they provide a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality. They push the person into higher levels of performance, and lead to previously undreamed-of states of consciousness. They transform the self by making it more complex. Csikszentmihalyi sets out four major components of an activity that will tend to make it enjoyable: we are confronting tasks we have a chance of completing we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing there are clear goals there is immediate feedback and then what it will feel like : we have deep and effortless involvement that takes us away from everyday life we will have a sense of control over our actions concern for the self disappears, but emerges stronger after the experience is over the sense of duration of time is altered, so that hours can pass by in minutes Flow experience is the total involvement with life, an experience that strikes the right balance of challenge and skills, which make us learn and grow within ourselves. This can be any experience or activity: reading, playing chess, rock climbing, weaving, dancing, or any other experience that involves you entirely. Some activities are designed to be enjoyable and are thus much more likely to produce a flow experience, these include games, dancing, reading and so on. On the other hand an individual’s ability to create a flow experience for themselves is based on their ability to control psychic energy and direct their experience of outside events. For example, if an individual is focused on the activity itself, rather than the outcome, a flow experience is much more likely to occur. Throughout the book, Flow is described in various circumstances: * Physical activity, or the body in flow * Mental activity or the flow of thought * Vocational activity or work as flow * Social activity, or flow in solitude or in company * Tragedies transformed by flow. In the chapter that studies flow and vocational activity, Csikszentmihalyi makes a very interesting observation based on validated research: most people have most of their flow experiences while they are working or on the job and least likely to experience flow during their leisure time. Yet people wish to spend less time at work and more time doing leisure activities. This raises several important questions about our society and people today: Are we so impressed by societal values and opinions, that we think we have to hate our jobs? That we think it would be preferable to do nothing all day and never grow our skill set or our mental capacity? And what would our society, or even humanity in general look like, if all of us remained in a state of complacency? Csikszentmihalyi asks similar questions in the last, and in my opinion most important, chapter of the book, “The Making of Meaning”. Here, all the threads weaved throughout the book come together and such major themes as life goals, purpose and meaning are discussed. I believe this to be THE CHAPTER for the existential psychotherapist! My favourite section in the book discusses purpose and life goals and encourages us to stick to our convictions, truly comforting during moments of personal self doubt when redirecting my career ambitions from the corporate world, via SFU training, and on to a yet unclear mix of psychotherapy, coaching and consulting, to be more aligned with my true self : “Purpose gives direction to one’s efforts, but it does not necessarily make life easier. Goals can lead to all sorts of trouble, at which point one is tempted to give them up and find some less demanding script by which to order one’s action. The price one pays for changing goals whenever opposition threatens is that while one may achieve a more pleasant and comfortable life, it is likely that it will end up empty and void of meaning.” “The meaning of life is meaning: whatever it is, wherever it comes from, a unified purpose is what gives meaning to life.” I could well relate to the author’s point that as complexity of culture evolves, the “luxury” of having too many options to choose from ends up obstructing the search for meaning. “There are simply too many goals competing for prominence, and who is to say which one is worth the dedication of an entire life?” “Lifestyles and religions are choices that are easily switched... So amongst the wealth of options, the consequence of equally attractive choices is uncertainty of purpose; uncertainty, in turn, saps resolution, and lack of resolve ends up devaluing choice”. Therefore freedom does not necessarily help develop meaning in life – on the contrary… Commitment to a goal and to the rules it entails is much easier when the choices are few and clear. The ancient remedy of “know thyself”, so old that its value is easily forgotten, carved over the entrance of the Delphic oracle, is the process to organise conflicting options. Self knowledge can be played out in innumerable ways (including on the psychoanalyst’s couch), each leading to greater inner harmony.
Here is a link to a short 5 minute summary video of the book
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