Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

An introduction to "flow," a new field of behavioral science that offers life-fulfilling potential, explains its principles and shows how to introduce flow into all aspects of life, avoiding the interferences of disharmony

Flow

What really makes people glad to be alive? What are the inner experiences that make life worthwhile? For more than two decades Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied those states in which people report feelings of concentration and deep enjoyment. His studies revealed that what makes experience genuinely satisfying is 'flow' - a state of concentration so focused that it amounts to complete absorption in an activity and results in the achievement of a perfect state of happiness. Flow has become the classic work on happiness and a major contribution to contemporary psychology. It examines such timeless issues as the challenge of lifelong learning; family relationships; art, sport and sex as 'flow'; the pain of loneliness; optimal use of free time; and how to make our lives meaningful.

The Psychology of Happiness

Shows its age in some of the language used and in how its ideas have been so widely dispersed and discussed in the intervening 35 years. However, it's still worth a read for its thoroughness and mostly no-nonsense tone.

Paulo Coelho Alves

Aamna

Don't read if you already read a lot of pop psychology. Nothing new in here.

Suat ATAN

The epic scientific story of wisdom and mindfulness. A guide for living happily.

Mert Alemdar

Kitap hayatımızın içindeki "Flow" mantığını kurgusunu çok güzel anlatıyor. Oldukça akıcı ve anlaşılır dilde yazılmış. Hayattan örnekler verilmesi çok hoş olmuş. Hayatımızdan keyif almak zevk almak için nelere dikkat etmeliyiz. Sevdiğimiz işte çalışmak neden önemli. Sevmediğimiz işte çalışınca hayatın bize nasıl zulüm olabileceğini iyice anlıyorsunuz. İşini seven insanların ortak özelliklerini dinlediğinizde sevdiğiniz ve size uygun olan işi yapmanın önemini daha iyi kavrıyorsunuz.
---------------
The book describes the logic of "Flow" in our lives so beautifully in its fiction. It is written in very fluent and clear language. It's nice to have examples from life. To enjoy our lives, to enjoy what we have to pay attention to. Why it's important to work in the job we love. You understand how life can be cruel to us when we work in a job we don't like. When you listen to the common characteristics of people who love their work, you understand the importance of doing the work that you love and that suits you better.

Kolle

expected a decent how-to guide. got that, and and a surprisingly solid philosophy of life itself.

una psicología de la felicidad

Fluir (Flow)

Brian

Vamos a tomarnos la vida como si fuera un juego, a veces perdemos, otras veces ganamos. Pero siempre nos vamos a divertir.

Félix

Finished at about 15% as I couldn't stand anymore the stance of the author just to sound and pretend smart, seeming wise and having meaningful claims without providing any proof or evidence for his ideas. 

I'm sorry, if you want to convince readers and openly skip transparent argumentation - don't make claims like that you just know the Bible was written collecting and synthesizing the experience of people - that early Christianity meant liberation from an imperialist society, that these and these societies were happier because people kept at tight rein on their emotions or that reformation liberated people from political and ideological exploitation. It just makes you void of credibility.

Here another example "The problem is that it has recently become fashionable to regard whatever we feel inside as the true voice of nature speaking. The only authority many people trust today is instinct."

Though I am aware that the book was written in the 1990s, I have not come across this claim ever in a "serious" psychological debate, not did I ever perceive it as somewhat fashionable as of today. Even back then Tversky's and Kahneman's Prospect Theory was already a decade old debate, debunking this conception for a long time or at least giving it some other flavor to discuss. Csikszentmihalyi doesn't care and goes on pretending, adding his own thoughts on the way.

Another example. "In making us work for its goal, society is assisted by some powerful allies: our biological needs and our genetic conditioning. All social controls, for instance, are ultimately based on a threat to the survival instinct."

Ok, then chap, any evidence for this, despite heavy arising doubts? No, Csikszentmihalyi obviously just knows it. Just trust him, stupid.

Besides this, the book is terribly western or US centric. Csikszentmihalyi depicts a suffering, crumbling society because … oh yeah, the SAT scores in the US fell between the 1960s and 1980s - and even more concerning the amount of clinical interventions involving mental patients increased between the 1950s and the 1970s... Anyone working with reasoning should know that these metrics have nothing to say by themselves and can also be an indicator for the opposite - but Csikszentmihalyi doesn't bother arguing.

It's not that these claims are inherently wrong, maybe they are true - but at least the author should commit to explain how he comes to these conclusions and why they are relevant, as otherwise they don't add anything to the content and just seem flat, pseudo-smart and hollow. If there is even a grain of scientific thinking in this book, beside anecdotes, Csikszentmihalyi is hiding it very well... I don't understand readers describing this book as "too academic", as the book itself is free from any academic reasoning.

If you like books written in a "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" style, people like Freud have some inherent epistemic value to you, and you really want to trust an author out of pure belief, maybe you will like this book. I didn't. 

Today, there are many more meaningful, well written and thought books about the subject - whether Self-Help or not. Give The Enigma of Reason a read instead.

The author introduces and explains the flow psychological theory. He demonstrates how it is possible to improve the quality of life by controlling the information that enters the consciousness.

The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Nelson Zagalo

The book that started it all. Every time you'll read about well-being or positive psychology, Flow will appear as the central concept. Flow is central, and has also served the recent studies on Game Design, in the quest for designing optimal experiences for gamers.

Dana Kraft

I gave up on this halfway through and just read some of the reviews that included detailed notes on the author's overall thesis. Maybe the subject was groundbreaking and required more persuasion when this book was originally published than today. Within a few pages, I was ready to accept that chasing money, power, prestige, etc. are not going to deliver meaningful or lasting satisfaction, but he went on and on about that.

Danial Imran 

Perhaps the only self-help book you need to read, or in the least the best one to start with, Mihaly's Flow is a book about 'how to live'. It is closer to Stoic philopsopy (such Seneca and Marcus Aurelius) than to Satre and Camus (who are more concerned with 'why live?' - a question of purpose).

In short, Flow is a book about method. How to think better, how to deal with stress better, and how to live better. It doesn't resort to inflexible rules nor principles that you must live with no matter what (like a religion). Regardless before I ramble on, I would recommend this.

Beware that Mihaly seems to dislike TV. For reasons beyond my understanding. But I don't think it's a huge issue. 

Joe Zimet

Bryan Maniotakis

It's short, but still too verbose. I listened to this one as an audiobook, and it was some of the worst quality I've ever heard.

Gerda Šalengaitė

Man visai patiko šios knygos mintis, kad norint džiaugtis gyvenimu, reikia išmokti džiaugtis dabartimi, šia akimirka, o tai padaryti galima mėgaujantis viskuo ar bent beveik viskuo, ką darai. Mėgautis tuo, ką darai, įmanoma patekus į srauto būseną, kurioje laikas bėga nejučia, veikla teikia malonumą, o įdėtos pastangos atsiperka vien suteikiamu džiaugmsu. Pakankamai paprastas konceptas. Knyga tikrai neturėjo būti trijų šimtų puspalių, būtų užtekę ir penkiasdešimties, bet spėju, kad kuo daugiau pavyzdžių, tuo geriau suprantamas konceptas.

Ivaylo Durmonski

This, sometimes kind of hard to digest book, is a must-read if you want to harness your mind and achieve total control over your consciousness – enter a flow state of mind more often.

But is flow achieved only by doing work?

No. You can be “in the zone” by doing a lot of things: having sex, listening to music, cooking, eating, looking at paintings, etc.

But if you really want to make the most out of this life-hack physical state, you should do the following: choose a single task you enjoy doing and continuously make things harder for you. By doing so, you’ll be completely absorbed in the task at hand, get better at this thing, and feel a lot happier overall.

Main takeaway: Happiness is not about getting new stuff or watching trivial shows. True content happens when you push yourself and upgrade your skills. When practicing at the edge of your skills, you get to fully enjoy life.

Read more:https://durmonski.com/book-summaries/...

Flow

Reviews