Flow – Psychology of Optimal Experience

ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE ■ 51 “A lot of pieces that you deal with are very straightforward... and you don’t find anythi ...

52 ■ FLOW After inventing this innocent game, Professor Maier-Leibnitz found an interesting use for it: as a way of measuring th ...

ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE ■ 53 true for human activities. Whenever I took our hunting dog, Hussar, for a walk in the ope ...

54 ■ FLOW tion is like breathing—you never think of it. The roof could fall in and, if it missed you, you would be unaware of it ...

ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE ■ 55 ing it, just as the rock climber does. But this realization would not make me particularl ...

56 ■ FLOW achieve or not. And a painter who enjoys painting must have internal­ ized criteria for “good” or “bad” so that after ...

ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE ■ 57 The kind of feedback we work toward is in and of itself often unimportant: What differenc ...

58 ■ FLOW viewed by the Italian team, these blind women stressed more than anyone else the importance of receiving clear feedbac ...

ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE ■ 59 becomes a world unto its own, significant only to itself. It’s a concentra­ tion thing. O ...

60 ■ FLOW grace and beauty.” And a chess player: “... I have a general feeling of well-being, and that 1 am in complete control ...

ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE ■ 61 tan, where the objective dangers—taxi drivers, bicycle messengers, buses, muggers—are far ...

62 • FLOW his personal conflicts Luchin turns to chess strategy, and endeavors to invent the “Luchin defense,” a set of moves th ...

ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE ■ 63 Somehow the right thing is done without you ever thinking about it or doing anything at a ...

64 * FLOW other aspect of his self. Whether his face is smudged makes absolutely no difference. The only possible threat is the ...

to the logical battle on the board claim that they feel as if they have been merged into a powerful “field of force” clashing wi ...

66 ■ FLOW doesn’t have the opportunity to reflect on what this means in terms of the self—if she did allow herself to become sel ...

ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE ■ 67 they have their own pace, their own sequences of events marking transi­ tions from one st ...

68 • FLOW the work got to be particularly boring, he would look up with a glazed look in his half-closed eyes, and he would star ...

ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE ■ 69 for action. As a result life passes in a sequence of boring and anxious experiences over ...

70 ■ FLOW to develop the skills necessary to benefit from them, we must expect that violence and crime will attract those who ca ...