Have you ever faced a task that is challenging and requires skill. You must concentrate. There are clear goals. Then you experience a deep effortless involvement. You experience a sense of control. Your sense of self vanishes. Time seems to stop.
- Flow requires challenge. This state resides in the narrow gap between anxiety and boredom.
- Whether you are rock climbing, performing surgery, doing your taxes or driving on the freeway, if the challenges of the situation overwhelm your level of skill or expertise, you will feel anxious or frustrated. If the activity is not challenging enough, you will become bored.
- Anxiety vs. Boredom (many of us are experiencing one of these two states all the time)
Why don’t we challenge ourselves in ways that allow us to experience a state all the time?
- We are attached to pleasure and resistant to pain.
Quick and easy pleasures give us immediate gratification, but they keep us from experiencing flow.
- Statistics have shown that the average mood while watching sitcoms on television is mild depression.
- Do most people choose to read or watch TV before bed?
- Statistically, reading a good book has much more all around benefits.
Flow from engagement cultivates happiness and wellbeing
- The more we live in the state of flow, the more we grow and experience meaningful success.
Re-source: Resist
As humans we are wired to pursue short term pleasures.
- Our tendency is to take the shortest route possible to happiness.
- To find it in that extra bowl of ice cream or in hours spent watching television
Flow doesn’t always come naturally; we often have to resist the temptation of short-term pleasure to get there.
- When we do, we set the stage for this exquisite experience of full absorption of the task at hand.
- When we have really great day doing the things we do well (work, sports, playing instruments, etc.), we had to put in the work earlier when things weren’t go so smoothly during learning the initial work.
- This goes with anything such as learning a new subject – you are having early difficulties in the beginning, but when you get moving with it, then you can find your flow.
craving and resource from “Start Here” – Master the lifelong habit of well-being – by Eric Langshur and Nate Klemp
