Flow (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

“Money can increase or decrease happiness, depending on how it is used.”

seems more beneficial to find out how everyday life can be made more harmonious and more satisfying.

a person’s financial situation is one of the least important factors affecting overall satisfaction with life.

Pleasure is an important component of the quality of life, but by itself it does not bring happiness.

To gain personal control over the quality of experience, however, one needs to learn how to build enjoyment into what happens day in, day out.

Pleasure is a feeling of contentment that one achieves whenever information in consciousness says that expectations set by biological programs or by social conditioning have been met.

A person can feel pleasure without any effort, if the appropriate centers in his brain are electrically stimulated, or as a result of the chemical stimulation of drugs. But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.

one may end up no longer enjoying life, and pleasure becomes the only source of positive experience.

every other goal—health, beauty, money, or power—is valued only because we expect that it will make us happy.

The problem arises when people are so fixated on what they want to achieve that they cease to derive pleasure from the present.

money, power, status, and possessions do not, by themselves, necessarily add one iota to the quality of life

“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.”

Progress is relatively fast in fields that apply knowledge to the material world, such as physics or genetics. But it is painfully slow when knowledge is to be applied to modify our own habits and desires.

Attention can be invested in innumerable ways, ways that can make life either rich or miserable.

Whenever information disrupts consciousness by threatening its goals we have a condition of inner disorder, or psychic entropy, a disorganization of the self that impairs its effectiveness. Prolonged experiences of this kind can weaken the self to the point that it is no longer able to invest attention and pursue its goals.

The opposite state from the condition of psychic entropy is optimal experience.

to improve the quality of life. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals.

None of these experiences may be particularly pleasurable at the time they are taking place, but afterward we think back on them and say, “That really was fun”

we can experience pleasure without any investment of psychic energy, whereas enjoyment happens only as a result of unusual investments of attention.

First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours. The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it.