Positive Technology Journal

Flow is an optimal experience characterized by:

* a sense of playfulness
* a feeling of being in control
* concentration and highly focused attention
* mental enjoyment of the activity for its own sake
* a distorted sense of time
* a match between the challenge at hand and one's skills

Info and Quotes from Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience By Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:

"Contrary to expectation, "flow" usually happens not during relaxing moments of leisure and entertainment, but rather when we are actively involved in a difficult enterprise, in a task that stretches our mental and physical abilities." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"People seem to get more flow from what they do on their jobs than from leisure activities in free time." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

It turns out that watching TV is not at all a flowful activity. People generally report higher levels of stress, depression, and tension after watching TV. It seems that TV's main virtue is that it occupies the mind undemandingly. Flow is hard to achieve without effort. Flow is not "wasting time".

"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

"People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"Getting control of life is never easy, and sometimes it can be definitely painful." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"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." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi