Flow – Psychology of Optimal Experience

WORK AS FLOW ■ 151 insight to answer this question, an insight that has given rise to diametri- cally opposite interpretations. ...

152 ■ FLOW afterward. Thus transformed, work becomes enjoyable, and as the result of a personal investment of psychic energy, it ...

WORK AS FLOW ■ 1 53 well designed in terms of providing flow. English weavers, for example, had their looms at home, and worked ...

154 ■ FLOW Now we have entered a new, postindustrial age, and work is said to be becoming benign again: the typical laborer now ...

WORK AS FLOW * 1 55 Let us take as an example the profession of surgery. Few jobs involve so much responsibility, or bestow so m ...

156 ■ FLOW Similarly surgery provides immediate and continuous feedback. If there is no blood in the cavity, the operation is go ...

WORK AS FLOW ■ 157 ing the same clothes, and driving to the hospital by the same route. They do so not because they are supersti ...

158 ■ FLOW that they would prefer not to be working, that their motivation on the job is low. The converse is also true: when su ...

WORK AS FLOW ■ 159 as reading, watching TV, having friends over, or going to a restaurant, only 18 percent of the responses ende ...

160 « FLOW What does this contradictory pattern mean? There are several possible explanations, but one conclusion seems inevitab ...

WORK AS FLOW ■ 161 their experience at work tends to be better than it is at home. (Contrary to popular opinion, salary and othe ...

162 ■ FLOW These piecemeal solutions may help, but the only real answer to coping with work stress is to consider it part of a g ...

WORK AS FLOW ■ 163 of years of human consciousness. The energy that could be used to focus on complex goals, to provide for enjo ...

8 ENJOYING SOLITUDE AND OTHER PEOPLE Studies on flow have demonstrated repeatedly that more than any­ thing else, the quality of ...

ENJOYING SOLITUDE AND OTHER PEOPLE • 1 65 solitude brings about in milder form the disorienting symptoms of sen­ sory deprivatio ...

166 ■ FLOW are “Being with happy people,” “Having people show interest in what I say,” “Being with friends,” and “Being noticed ...

ENJOYING SOLITUDE AND OTHER PEOPLE ■ 167 wonderful and the evening miserable. Because we depend so much on the affection and app ...

168 ■ FLOW the potential to be transformed by redefining its rules. By not taking on the role of the “victim” that had been impo ...

ENJOYING SOLITUDE AND OTHER PEOPLE ■ 1 69 swer is that keeping order in the mind from within is very difficult. We need external ...

170 • FLOW is a pleasant state of affairs, but it is only a misleading simulation of that enjoyment that comes from increasing o ...