Optimal experience is that rare occasion when we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like.
A typical day is full of anxiety and boredom. Flow experiences provide the flashes of intense living against this dull background.
Discipline is not always internalized and actually can breed resentment among children.
People enter Web sites hoping to be led somewhere, hoping for a payoff.
Creative individuals are more likely to have not only the strengths of their own gender but those of the other one, too.
Those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works.
Competition is enjoyable only when it is a means to perfect one’s skills; when it becomes an end in itself, it ceases to be fun.
Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness.
Whatever the composition of a firm, if it is to do good business it should be a place where everyone is encouraged to progress toward complexity- or at the very least a place that does not make it more difficult to achieve personal growth.
It is by becoming increasingly complex that the self might be said to grow.
Competition is an easy way to get into flow.
Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible. Figure out the implications of the problem. Implement the solution.
If we are so rich, why aren’t we happy?
Whatever the dictates of fashion, it seems that those who take the trouble to gain mastery over what happens in consciousness do lead a happier life.
Participate as fully as possibly in the world around you.
To be overcome with the ultimate goal often interferes with performance.
One of the surest ways to enrich life is to make experiences less fleeting.
Only direct control of experience, the ability to derive moment-by-moment enjoyment from everything we do, can overcome the obstacles to fulfillment.
Repeatedly we question the necessity of our actions and evaluate critically the reasons for carrying them out. But in flow there is no need to reflect, because the action carries us forward as if by magic.
When a religion or ideology becomes dominant, the lack of controls will result in widening spirals of license leading to degradation and corruption.