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Why Is It That, Despite Having Achieved Previously Undreamed-of Miracles Of Progress, We Seem More Helpless In Facing Life Than Our Less Privileged Ancestors Were? The Answer Seems Clear: While Humankind Collectively Has Increased Its Material Powers A Thousandfold, It Has Not Advanced Very Far In Terms Of Improving The Content Of Experience.

-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Why Is It That,

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Why Is It That, Despite Having Achieved Previously Undreamed-of Miracles Of Progress, We Seem More Helpless In Facing Life Than Our Less Privileged Ancestors Were? The Answer Seems Clear: While Humankind Collectively Has Increased Its Material Powers A Thousandfold, It Has Not Advanced Very Far In Terms Of Improving The Content Of Experience.

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An Ideal Organization Is One In Which Each Worker's Potentialities Find Room For Expression.

If We Agree That The Bottom Line Of Life Is Happiness, Not Success, Then It Makes Perfect Sense To Say That It Is The Journey That Counts, Not Reaching The Destination.

Happiness Is A Condition That Must Be Prepared For, Cultivated , And Defended Privately By Each Person.

Find Out What You Like And What You Hate About Life. Start Doing More Of What You Love, Less Of What You Hate.

Whether We Like It Or Not, Each Of Us Is Constrained By Limits On What We Can Do And Feel. To Ignore These Limits Leads To Denial And Eventually To Failure. To Achieve Excellence, We Must First Understand The Reality Of The Everyday, With All Its Demands

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.

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.

The Psychic Entropy Peculiar To The Human Condition Involves Seeing More To Do Than One Can Actually Accomplish And Feeling Able To Accomplish More Than What Conditions Allow.

Many Business Leaders Today View Their Jobs As Entailing Responsibility For The Welfare Of The Wider Community. These Individuals Do Not Define Themselves As Profit-making Machines Whose Only Reason For Existing Is To Satisfy Escalating Expectation For Immediate Gain.

If We Are So Rich, Why Aren't We Happy?

The Rules Themselves Are Clear Enough, And Within Everyone’s Reach. But Many Forces, Both Within Ourselves And In The Environment, Stand In The Way. It Is A Little Like Trying To Lose Weight: Everyone Knows What It Takes, Everyone Wants To Do It, Yet It Is Next To Impossible For So Many.

Attention Is Like Energy In That Without It No Work Can Be Done, And In Doing Work Is Dissipated. We Create Ourselves By How We Use This Energy. Memories, Thoughts And Feelings Are All Shaped By How Use It. And It Is An Energy Under Control, To Do With As We Please; Hence Attention Is Our Most Important Tool In The Task Of Improving The Quality Of Experience.

And, In Fact, You Can Find That The Lack Of Basic Resources, Material Resources, Contributes To Unhappiness, But The Increase In Material Resources Do Not Increase Happiness.

Few Things Are Sadder Than Encountering A Person Who Knows Exactly What He Should Do, Yet Cannot Muster Enough Energy To Do It. "he Who Desires But Acts Not," Wrote Blake With His Accustomed Vigor, "breeds Pestilence.

You Yourself Are In An Ecstatic State To Such A Point That You Feel As Though You Almost Don't Exist. I've Experienced This Time And Again. My Hand Seems Devoid Of Myself, And I Have Nothing To Do With What Is Happening. I Just Sit There Watching In A State Of Awe And Wonderment. And It Just Flows Out By Itself.

I Think That Evolution Has Had A Hand In Selecting People Who Had A Sense Of Doing Something Beyond Themselves.

We Shape Our Life By Deciding To Pay Attention To It. It Is The Direction Of Our Attention And Its Intensity That Will Determines What We Accomplish And How Well.

We Have All Experienced Times When, Instead Of Being Buffeted By Anonymous Forces, We Do Feel In Control Of Our Actions, Masters Of Our Own Fate. On The Rare Occasions That It Happens, 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.. Moments Like These Are Not The Passive, Receptive, Relaxing Timesthe Best Moments Usually Occur When A Person’s Body Or Mind Is Stretched To Its Limits In A Voluntary Effort To Accomplish Something Difficult And Worthwhile.

A Leader Will Find It Difficult To Articulate A Coherent Vision Unless It Expresses His Core Values, His Basic Identity...one Must First Embark On The Formidable Journey Of Self-discovery In Order To Create A Vision With Authentic Soul.

We Can Transform Reality To The Extent That We Influence What Happens In Consciousness And Thus Free Ourselves From The Threats And Blandishments Of The Outside World.

Only Direct Control Of Experience, The Ability To Derive Moment-by-moment Enjoyment From Everything We Do, Can Overcome The Obstacles To Fulfillment.

People Without An Internalized Symbolic System Can All Too Easily Become Captives Of The Media.

Getting Control Of Life Is Never Easy, And Sometimes It Can Be Definitely Painful.

Creativity Is Any Act, Idea, Or Product That Changes An Existing Domain, Or That Transforms An Existing Domain Into A New One What Counts Is Whether The Novelty He Or She Produces Is Accepted For Inclusion In The Domain.

The Task Is To Learn How To Enjoy Everyday Life Without Diminishing Other People's Chances To Enjoy Theirs.

There Are Managers So Preoccupied With Their E-mail Messages That They Never Look Up From Their Screens To See What's Happening In The Nondigital World

A Paycheck Is A Sufficient Impetus To Motivate Some Employees To Do The Minimum Amount To Get By, And For Others, The Challenge Of Getting Ahead In The Organization Provides A Satisfactory Focus For A While. But These Incentives Alone Are Rarely Strong Enough To Inspire Workers To Give Their Best To Their Work. For This A Vision Is Needed, An Overarching Goal That Gives Meaning To The Job, So That An Individual Can Forget Himself In The Task And Experience Flow Without Doubts Or Regrets. The Most Important Component Of Such A Vision Is An Ingredient We Call Soul.

Half A Century Ago, The Austrian Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl Wrote That Happiness Cannot Be Attained By Wanting To Be Happy - It Must Come As The Unintended Consequence Of Working For A Goal Greater Than Oneself.

To Know Oneself Is The First Step Toward Making Flow A Part Of One's Entire Life. But Just As There Is No Free Lunch In The Material Economy, Nothing Comes Free In The Psychic One. If One Is Not Willing To Invest Psychic Energy In The Internal Reality Of Consciousness, And Instead Squanders It In Chasing External Rewards, One Loses Mastery Of One's Life, And Ends Up Becoming A Puppet Of Circumstances.

Since The Purpose Of Business Is To Satisfy Existing Desires, Or Stimulate New Ones, If Everyone Were Genuinely Happy, There Would Be No Need For Business Any Longer.

If I Had To Express In One Word What Makes Their [creative Individuals'] Personalities Different From Others, It's Complexity. They Show Tendencies Of Thought And Action That In Most People Are Segregated. They Contain Contradictory Extremes; Instead Of Being An "individual," Each Of Them Is A "multitude."

When Each Of These Three Elements Of Vision-concern For Excellence, For People And For The Wider Environment-are Present, Business Is Transformed From A Tool For Making Profits Into A Creative, Humane Experiment For Improving Life.

What Does This Contradictory Pattern Mean?one Conclusion Seems Inevitable: When It Comes To Work, People Do Not Heed The Evidence Of Their Senses. They Disregard The Quality Of Immediate Experience, And Base Their Motivation Instead On The Strongly Rooted Cultural Stereotype Of What Work Is Supposed To Be Like. They Think Of It As An Imposition, A Constraint, An Infringement Of Their Freedom, And Therefore Something To Be Avoided As Much As Possible.

If The Firms That Employ An Increasing Majority Of The Population Are Driven Solely To Satisfy The Owner's Greed At The Expense Of Working Conditions, Of The Stability Of The Community, And Of The Health Of The Environment, Chances Are That The Quality Of Our Lives Will Be Worse Than It Is Now.

Happiness Is Not Something That Happens ... It Does Not Depend On Outside Events, But, Rather, On How We Interpret Them.

If We Know What That Set Point Is, We Can Predict Fairly Accurately When You Will Be In Flow, And It Will Be When Your Challenges Are Higher Than Average And Skills Are Higher Than Average.

Competition Is An Easy Way To Get Into Flow.

However, A Good Life Consists Of More Than Simply The Totality Of Enjoyable Experiences. It Must Also Have A Meaningful Pattern, A Trajectory Of Growth That Results In The Development Of Increasing Emotional, Cognitive, And Social Complexity.

A Person Who Forgoes The Use Of His Symbolic Skills Is Never Really Free.

The Self Expands Through Acts Of Self Forgetfulness.

Self Forgetfulness

It Is Better To Look Suffering Straight In The Eye, Acknowledge And Respect It’s Presence, And Then Get Busy As Soon As Possible Focusing On Things We Choose To Focus On.

Repression Is Not The Way To Virtue. When People Restrain Themselves Out Of Fear, Their Lives Are By Necessity Diminished. Only Through Freely Chosen Discipline Can Life Be Enjoyed And Still Kept Within The Bounds Of Reason.

A Typical Day Is Full Of Anxiety And Boredom. Flow Experiences Provide The Flashes Of Intense Living Against This Dull Background.

Flow Is Hard To Achieve Without Effort. Flow Is Not 'wasting Time.

Take Charge Of Your Schedule. Make Time For Reflection And Relaxation.

For Original Ideas To Come About, You Have To Let Them Percolate Under The Level Of Consciousness In A Place Where We Have No Way To Make Them Obey Our Own Desires Or Our Own Direction. Their Random Combinations Are Driven By Forces We Don't Know About.

A Person Can Make Himself Happy, Or Miserable, Regardless Of What Is Actually Happening 'outside,' Just By Changing The Contents Of Consciousness.

...if We Expended All Our Energies Solely On Taking Care Of Our Own Needs We Would Stop Growing. In That Respect What We Call "soul" Can Be Viewed As The Surplus Energy That Can Be Invested Into Change And Transformation. As Such, It Is The Cutting Edge Of Evolution.

A Web Site That Promotes Flow Is Like A Gourmet Meal. You Start Off With The Appetizers, Move On To The Salads And Entrees, And Build Toward Dessert. Unfortunately, Most Sites Are Built Like A Cafeteria. You Pick Whatever You Want. That Sounds Good At First, But Soon It Doesn't Matter What You Choose To Do. Everything Is Bland And The Same.

Flow Is The Process Of Achieving Happiness Through Control Over One's Inner Life. The Optimal State Of Inner Experience Is Order In Consciousness. This Happens When We Focus Our Attention (psychic Energy) On Realistic Goals And When Our Skills Match The Challenges We Face.

Develop What You Lack.

A Self That Is Only Differentiated - Not Integrated - May Attain Great Individual Accomplishments, But Risks Being Mired In Self-centered Egotism. By The Same Token, A Person Who Self Is Based Exclusively On Integration Will Be Well Connected And Secure, But Lack Autonomous Individuality. Only When A Person Invests Equal Amounts Of Psychic Energy In These Two Processes And Avoids Both Selfishness And Conformity Is The Self Likely To Reflect Complexity.

Perform With Elan, Brilliance And Dash - At Concert Pitch.

When We Are Involved In [creativity], We Feel That We Are Living More Fully Than During The Rest Of Life.

In Large Organizations The Dilution Of Information As It Passes Up And Down The Hierarchy, And Horizontally Across Departments, Can Undermine The Effort To Focus On Common Goals.

It Is As If Evolution Has Built A Safety Device In Our Nervous System That Allows Us To Experience Full Happiness Only When We Are Living At 100%-when We Are Fully Using The Physical And Mental Equipment We Have Been Given.

...perhaps The Most Distinguishing Trait Of Visionary Leaders Is That They Believe In A Goal That Benefits Not Only Themselves, But Others As Well. It Is Such Vision That Attracts The Psychic Energy Of Other People, And Makes Them Willing To Work Beyond The Call Of Duty For The Organization.

The Downside, Of Course, Is That Over Time Religions Become Encrusted With Precepts And Ideas That Are The Antithesis Of Soul, As Each Faith Tries To Protect Its Doctrines And Institution Instead Of Nurturing The Evolution Of Consciousness. If One Is Not Careful To Distinguish The Genuine Insights Of A Religion From Its Irrelevant Accretions, One Can Go Through Life Following An Inappropriate Moral Compass.

People Enter Web Sites Hoping To Be Led Somewhere, Hoping For A Payoff.

..such Practices And Beliefs, Which Interfere With Happiness, Are Neither Inevitable Nor Necessary; They Evolved By Chance, As A Result Of Random Responses To Accidental Conditions. But Once They Become Part Of The Norms And Habits Of A Culture, People Assume That This Is How Things Must Be; They Come To Believe They Have No Other Options.

It Is How We Choose What We Do, And How We Approach It, That Will Determine Whether The Sum Of Our Days Adds Up To A Formless Blur, Or To Something Resembling A Work Of Art.

The Best Moments In Our Lives Are Not The Passive, Receptive, Relaxing Times...the Best Moments Usually Occur When A Person's Body Or Mind Is Stretched To It's Limited In Voluntary Effort To Accomplish Something Difficult And Worthwhile.

Good Design Is A Visual Statement That Maximizes The Life Goals Of The People In A Given Culture (or, More Realistically, The Goals Of A Certain Subset Of People In The Culture) That Draws On A Shared Symbolic Expression For The Ordering Of Such Goals.

One Cannot Lead A Life That Is Truly Excellent Without Feeling That One Belongs To Something Greater And More Permanent Than Oneself.

Discipline Is Not Always Internalized And Actually Can Breed Resentment Among Children.

Pain And Pleasure Occur In Consciousness And Exist Only There

We Have All Experienced Times When, Instead Of Being Buffeted By Anonymous Forces, We Do Feel In Control Of Our Actions, Masters Of Our Own Fate. On The Rare Occasions That It Happens, We Feel A Sense Of Exhilaration.

Participate As Fully As Possibly In The World Around You.

For Better Or Worse, Our Future Will Be Determined In Large Part By Our Dreams And By The Struggle To Make Them Real.

Write Down Each Day What Surprised You And How You Surprised Others. When Something Strikes A Spark Of Interest, Follow It.

How We Feel About Ourselves, The Joy We Get From Living, Ultimately Depends Directly On How The Mind Filters And Interprets Everyday Experiences. Whether We Are Happy Depends On Inner Harmony, Not On The Controls We Are Able To Exert Over The Great Forces Of The Universe.

I Have Devoted 30 Years Of Research To How Creative People Live And Work, To Make More Understandable The Mysterious Process By Which They Come Up With New Ideas And New Things. [...] If I Had To Express In One Word What Makes Their Personalities Different From Others, It's Complexity. They Show Tendencies Of Thought And Action That In Most People Are Segregated. They Contain Contradictory Extremes; Instead Of Being An "individual", Each Of Them Is A "multitude".

Act As If The Future Of The Universe Depends On What You Do, While Laughing At Yourself For Thinking That Your Actions Make Any Difference.

A Business Is Successful To The Extent That It Provides A Product Or Service That Contributes To Happiness In All Of Its Forms.

Optimal Experience Is Thus Something That We Make Happen.

Goals Transform A Random Walk Into A Chase.

Socializing Is More Positive Than Being Alone, That's Why Meetings Are So Popular. People Don't Like Being Alone. That Would Be, However, An Important Skill To Learn.

Like Being Alone

Pleasure Is An Important Component Of The Quality Of Life, But By Itself It Does Not Bring Happiness. Pleasure Helps To Maintain Order, But By Itself Cannot Create A New Order In Consciousness.

Through Learning We Grow, Becoming More Than We Were Before, And In That Sense Learning Is Unselfish, Because It Results In The Transformation Of What We Were Before, A Setting Aside Of The Old Self In Favor Of A More Complex One.

Creativity Is A Central Source Of Meaning In Our Lives...most Of The Things That Are Interesting, Important, And Human Are The Results Of Creativity...when We Are Involved In It, We Feel That We Are Living More Fully Than During The Rest Of Life.

Problems Are Solved Only When We Devote A Great Deal Of Attention To Them And In A Creative Way...to Have A Good Life, It Is Not Enough To Remove What Is Wrong With It. We Also Need A Positive Goal, Otherwise Why Keep Going? Creativity Is One Answer To That Question - It Provides One Of The Most Exciting Models For Living.

Today Many American Corporations Spend A Great Deal Of Money And Time Trying To Increase The Originality Of Their Employees, Hoping Thereby To Get A Competitive Edge In The Marketplace. But Such Programs Make No Difference Unless Management Also Learns To Recognize The Valuable Ideas Among The Many Novel Ones, And Then Finds Ways Of Implementing Them.

It Is By Becoming Increasingly Complex That The Self Might Be Said To Grow.

Attention Is Psychic Energy, And Like Physical Energy, Unless We Allocate Some Part Of It To The Task At Hand, No Work Gets Done.

To Be Overcome With The Ultimate Goal Often Interferes With Performance.

Sir John Templeton: "my Ethical Principle In The First Place Was: 'where Could I Use My Talents That God Gave Me To Help The Most People?'"

Ethical Principles

In Knowledge-intensive Business Settings, Where Every Manager Has To Oversee Massive Amounts Of Information As Well As People, Facilitating The Use Of Psychic Energy Becomes A Primary Concern.

Shift Often From Openness To Closure.

Try To Be Surprised By Something Every Day.

But It Is Impossible To Enjoy A Tennis Game, A Book, Or A Conversation Unless Attention Is Fully Concentrated On The Activity.

The Happiest People Spend Much Time In A State Of Flow - The State In Which People Are So Involved In An Activity That Nothing Else Seems To Matter; The Experience Itself Is So Enjoyable That People Will Do It Even At Great Cost, For The Sheer Sake Of Doing It.

Enjoyment Appears At The Boundary Between Boredom And Anxiety, When The Challenges Are Just Balanced With The Person's Capacity To Act.

It Does Not Seem To Be True That Work Necessarily Needs To Be Unpleasant. It May Always Have To Be Hard, Or At Least Harder Than Doing Nothing At All. But There Is Ample Evidence That Work Can Be Enjoyable, And That Indeed, It Is Often The Most Enjoyable Part Of Life.

A Joyful Life Is An Individual Creation That Cannot Be Copied From A Recipe.

There Are Two Main Strategies We Can Try To Improve The Quality Of Life. The First Is To Try Making External Conditions Match Our Goals. The Second Is To Change How We Experience External Conditions To Make Them Fit Our Goals Better.

Often We Don't Have A Good Notion Of What Our Talents Are, Because We Have Never Had A Chance To Try Them Out.

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.

The Mood State Americans Are In, On Average, When Watching Television Is Mildly Depressed.

But To Change All Existence Into A Flow Experience, It Is Not Sufficient To Learn Merely How To Control Moment-by-moment States Of Consciousness. It Is Also Necessary To Have An Overall Context Of Goals For The Events Of Everyday Life To Make Senseto Create Harmony In Whatever One Does Is The Last Task That The Flow Theory Presents To Whose Who Wish To Attain Optimal Experience; It Is A Task That Involves Transforming The Entirety Of Life Into A Single Flow Activity, With Unified Goals That Provide Constant Purpose.

What I "discovered" Was That Happiness Is Not Something That Happens. It Is Not The Result Of Good Fortune Or Random Chance. It Is Not Something That Money Can Buy Or Power Command. It Does Not Depend On Outside Events, But, Rather, On How We Interpret Them. Happiness, In Fact, Is A Condition That Must Be Prepared For, Cultivated, And Defended Privately By Each Person. People Who Learn To Control Inner Experience Will Be Able To Determine The Quality Of Their Lives, Which Is As Close As Any Of Us Can Come To Being Happy.

The Germ Of An Idea Doesn't Make The Sculpture That Stands Up... So The Next Stage Is Hard Work

Why Is It That, Despite Having Achieved Previously Undreamed-of Miracles Of Progress, We Seem More Helpless In Facing Life Than Our Less Privileged Ancestors Were? The Answer Seems Clear: While Humankind Collectively Has Increased Its Material Powers A Thousandfold, It Has Not Advanced Very Far In Terms Of Improving The Content Of Experience.

Each Of Us Is Born With Two Contradictory Sets Of Instructions: A Conservative Tendency, Made Up Of Instincts For Self-preservation, Self-aggrandizement, And Saving Energy, And An Expansive Tendency Made Up Of Instincts For Exploring, For Enjoying Novelty And Risk-the Curiosity That Leads To Creativity Belongs To This Set. But Whereas The First Tendency Requires Little Encouragement Or Support From Outside To Motivate Behaviour, The Second Can Wilt If Not Cultivated.

And It Has Become A Kind Of A Truism In The Study Of Creativity That You Can't Be Creating Anything With Less Than 10 Years Of Technical Knowledge Immersion In A Particular Field.

It Is How People Respond To Stress That Determines Whether They Will Profit From Misfortune Or Be Miserable.

If You Do Anything Well, It Becomes Enjoyable. To Keep Enjoying Something, You Need To Increase Its Complexity.

Without Respect, The Subtle Alchemy That Binds An Organization Or That Serves As The Impetus For A Business Transaction Would Dissolve Into Mutual Suspicion And Hostility.

As Long As We Respond Predictably To What Feels Good And What Feels Bad, It Is Easy For Others To Exploit Our Preferences For Their Own Ends.

Most Of Us Become So Rigidly Fixed In The Ruts Carved Out By Genetic Programming And Social Conditioning That We Ignore The Options Of Choosing Any Other Course Of Action. Living Exclusively By Genetic And Social Instructions Is Fine As Long As Everything Goes Well. But The Moment Bioloical Or Social Goals Are Frustrated- Which In The Long Run Is Inevitable - A Person Must Formulate New Goals, And Create A New Flow Activity For Himself, Or Else He Will Always Waste His Energies In Inner Turmoil.

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.

Happiness Does Not Simply Happen To Us. It's Something That We Make Happen.

Our Jobs Determine To A Large Extent What Our Lives Are Like. Is What You Do For A Living Making You Ill? Does It Keep You From Becoming A More Fully Realized Person? Do You Feel Ashamed Of What You Have To Do At Work? All Too Often, The Answer To Such Questions Is Yes. Yet It Does Not Have To Be Like That. Work Can Be One Of The Most Joyful, Most Fulfilling Aspects Of Life. Whether It Will Be Or Not Depends On The Actions We Collectively Take.

The Ability To Take Misfortune And Make Something Good Come Of It Is A Rare Gift. Those Who Possess It Are ..said To Have Resilience Or Courage.

It Is When We Act Freely, For The Sake Of The Action Itself Rather Than For Ulterior Motives, That We Learn To Become More Than What We Were.

It Is Amazing How Little Effort Most People Make To Improve Control Of Their Attention. If Reading A Book Seems Too Difficult, Instead Of Sharpening Concentration We Tend To Set It Aside And Instead Turn On The Television, Which Not Only Requires Minimal Attention, But In Fact Tends To Diffuse What Little It Commands With Choppy Editing, Commercial Interruptions, And Generally Inane Content.

Try To Be Inspired By Something Every Day. Try To Inspire At Least One Person Every Day.

To Be Successful You Have To Enjoy Doing Your Best While At The Same Time Contributing To Something Beyond Yourself.

Doing Your Best

It Is Not The Hearing That Improves Life, But The Listening.

It Is Not The Skills We Actually Have That Determine How We Feel But The Ones We Think We Have.

Enjoyment, On The Other Hand, Is Not Always Pleasant, And It Can Be Very Stressful At Times. A Mountain Climber, For Example, May Be Close To Freezing, Utterly Exhausted, And In Danger Of Falling Into A Bottomless Crevasse, Yet He Wouldn't Want To Be Anywhere Else. Sipping A Piña Colada Under A Palm Tree At The Edge Of The Turquoise Ocean Is Idyllic, But It Just Doesn't Compare To The Exhilaration He Feels On The Windswept Ridge.

Studying Creativity Is Not An Elite Distraction, But Provides One Of The Most Exciting Models For Living.

But Shortcuts Are Dangerous; We Cannot Delude Ourselves That Our Knowledge Is Further Along Than It Actually Is.

A Thoroughly Socialized Person Is One Who Desires Only The Rewards That Others Around Him Have Agreed He Should Long For - Rewards Often Grafted Onto Genetically Programmed Desires.a Person Who Cannot Override Genetic Instructions When Necessary Is Always Vulnerable..the Solution Is To Gradually Become Free Of Societal Rewards And Learn How To Substitute For Them Rewards That Are Under One's Own Powers.

The Most Important Step In Emancipating Oneself From Social Controls Is The Ability To Find Rewards In The Events Of Each Moment.

For A Person To Become Deeply Involved In Any Activity It Is Essential That He Knows Precisely What Tasks He Must Accomplish, Moment By Moment.

One Must Develop Skills That Stretch Capacities, That Make One More Than What One Is.

The Foremost Reason That Happiness Is So Hard To Achieve Is That The Universe Was Not Designed With The Comfort Of Human Beings In Mind...it Seems That Every Time A Pressing Danger Is Avoided A New And More Sophisticated Threat Appears On The Horizon...whether We Are Happy Depends On Inner Harmony, Not On The Controls We Are Able To Exert Over The Great Forces Of The Universe

Flow Is Being Completely Involved In An Activity For Its Own Sake. The Ego Falls Away. Time Flies. Every Action, Movement, And Thought Follows Inevitably From The Previous One, Like Playing Jazz.

The Solution Is To Gradually Become Free Of Societal Rewards And Learn How To Substitute For Them Rewards That Are Under One's Own Powers. This Is Not To Say That We Should Abandon Every Goal Endorsed By Society; Rather, It Means That, In Addition To Or Instead Of The Goals Others Use To Bribe Us With, We Develop A Set Of Our Own.

We Can Either Help To Make This World A More Incredible Place Than It Has Ever Been, Or We Can Hasten Its Return To Inorganic Dust.

The More A Person Feels Skilled, The More Her Moods Will Improve; While The More Challenges That Are Present, The More Her Attention Will Become Focused And Concentrated.

Control Of Consciousness Determines The Quality Of Life.

Quality Of Life

If A Leader Demonstrates That His Purpose Is Noble, That The Work Will Enable People To Connect With Something Large - More Permanent Than Their Material Existence - People Will Give The Best Of Themselves To The Enterprise

Knowing Oneself Is Not So Much A Question Of Discovering What Is Present In One's Self, But Rather The Creation Of Who One Wants To Be.

We Cannot Deny The Facts Of Nature, But We Should Certainly Try To Improve On Them.

When A Religion Or Ideology Becomes Dominant, The Lack Of Controls Will Result In Widening Spirals Of License Leading To Degradation And Corruption.

If An Enterprise Does Not Aspire To Be The Best Of Its Kind, It Will Attract Second-rate Employees, And It Will Be Soon Forgotten.

Jane Fonda, Who Divided Her Life Into Three Acts, Decided After Her Sixtieth Birthday That She Was Now Facing The Final Act, And Came To The Following Conclusion: "i Thought To Myself, Well If That's The Case And If What I'm Scared Of Isn't Death, But Getting To The End With Regrets, Then I've Got To Figure Out What Would Be The Things That I Would Regret When I Got To The Last Act If I Hadn't Done Them Or Achieved Them By Then. And They Were: Having An Intimate Relationship And Having Made A Difference."

Intimate Relationships

People Generally Report Higher Levels Of Stress, Depression, And Tension After Watching Tv. It Seems That Tv's Main Virtue Is That It Occupies The Mind Undemandingly.

Contrary To What Most Of Us Believe, Happiness Does Not Simply Happen To Us. It's Something That We Make Happen, And It Results From Doing Our Best. Feeling Fulfilled When We Live Up To Our Potentialities Is What Motivates Differentiation And Leads To Evolution.

When People Restrain Themselves Out Of Fear, Their Lives Are By Necessity Diminished. They Become Rigid And Defensive, And Their Self Stops Growing.

Even Without Success, Creative Persons Find Joy In A Job Well Done. Learning For Its Own Sake Is Rewarding.

One Of The Surest Ways To Enrich Life Is To Make Experiences Less Fleeting.

For Better Or Worse, Our Future Is Now Closely Tied To Human Creativity.

Find A Way To Express What Moves You.

It Is When We Act Freely, For The Sake Of The Action Itself Rather Than For Ulterior Motives, That We Learn To Become More Than What We Were. When We Choose A Goal And Invest Ourselves In It To The Limits Of Concentration, Whatever We Do Will Be Enjoyable. And Once We Have Tasted This Joy, We Will Redouble Our Efforts To Taste It Again. This Is The Way The Self Grows.

If You're Alone With Nothing To Do, The Quality Of Your Experience Really Plummets.

Control Over Consciousness Cannot Be Institutionaliz Ed. As Soon As It Becomes Part Of A Set Of Social Rules And Norms, It Ceases To Be Effective In The Way It Was Originally Intended To Be.

I Have A Naive Trust In The Universe - That At Some Level It All Makes Sense, And We Can Get Glimpses Of That Sense If We Try.

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.

To Gain Control Over The Quality Of Experience, One Needs To Learn How To Build Enjoyment Into What Happens Day In, Day Out.

Produce As Many Ideas As Possible. Try To Produce Unlikely Ideas.

It Is Essential To Learn To Enjoy Life. It Really Does Not Make Sense To Go Through The Motions Of Existence If One Does Not Appreciate As Much Of It As Possible.

There Will Be No Good Business Unless The Majority Comes To Agree That We Should Demand More From Business Than Large Quarterly Returns.

If You Are Interested In Something, You Will Focus On It, And If You Focus Attention On Anything, It Is Likely That You Will Become Interested In It. Many Of The Things We Find Interesting Are Not So By Nature, But Because We Took The Trouble Of Paying Attention To Them.

People Who Learn To Control Inner Experience Will Be Able To Determine The Quality Of Their Lives, Which Is As Close As Any Of Us Can Come To Being Happy.

Unless A Person Knows How To Give Order To Her Thoughts, Attention Will Be Attracted To Whatever Is Most Problematic At The Moment.

...in The Words Of Max Depree: "management Has A Lot To Do With Answers. But Leadership Is A Function Of Questions. And The First Question For A Leader Always Is: 'who Do We Intend To Be?' Not 'what Are We Going To Do?' But 'who Do We Intend To Be?'"

Look At Problems From As Many Viewpoints As Possible. Figure Out The Implications Of The Problem. Implement The Solution.

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.

Entropy Is The Normal State Of Consciousness - A Condition That Is Neither Useful Nor Enjoyable.

To Live Means To Experience-through Doing, Feeling, Thinking. Experience Takes Place In Time, So Time Is The Ultimate Scarce Resource We Have. Over The Years, The Content Of Experience Will Determine The Quality Of Life. Therefore One Of The Most Essential Decisions Any Of Us Can Make Is About How One's Time Is Allocated Or Invested.

Creative Individuals Are More Likely To Have Not Only The Strengths Of Their Own Gender But Those Of The Other One, Too.

If There Is One Word That Makes Creative People Different From Others, It Is The Word Complexity. Instead Of Being An Individual, They Are A Multitude. Like The Color White That Includes All Colors, They Tend To Bring Together The Entire Range Of Human Possibilities Within Themselves. Creativity Allows For Paradox, Light, Shadow, Inconsistency, Even Chaos -and Creative People Experience Both Extremes With Equal Intensity.

Without The Capacity To Provide Its Own Information, The Mind Drifts Into Randomness.

To Play The Trumpet Well, A Musician Can Not Let More Than A Few Days Pass Without Practicing.

Wake Up In The Morning With A Specific Goal To Look Forward To.

It Is By Being Fully Involved With Every Detail Of Our Lives, Whether Good Or Bad, That We Find Happiness, Not By Trying To Look For It Directly.

Creative Individuals Tend To Be Smart, Yet Also Naive At The Same Time... Creative Individuals Have A Combination Of Playfulness And Discipline, Or Responsibility And Irresponsibility.

Other Things Equal, A Life Filled With Complex Flow Activities Is More Worth Living Than One Spent Consuming Passive Entertainment.

Those Periods Of Struggling To Overcome Challenges Are What People Find To Be The Most Enjoyable Times.

Most Enjoyable Activities Are Not Natural; They Demand An Effort That Initially One Is Reluctant To Make. But Once The Interaction Starts To Provide Feedback To The Person's Skills, It Usually Begins To Be Intrinsically Rewarding.

We Have Learned How To Develop Five-minute And Even One-minute Managers. But We Would Do Better To Ask Ourselves What It Takes To Be An Executive Who Helps Build A Better Future.

Purpose Provides Activation Energy For Living.

To Overcome The Anxieties And Depressions Of Contemporary Life, Individuals Must Become Independent Of The Social Environment To The Degree That They No Longer Respond Exclusively In Terms Of Its Rewards And Punishments. To Achieve Such Autonomy, A Person Has To Learn To Provide Rewards To Herself. She Has To Develop The Ability To Find Enjoyment And Purpose Regardless Of External Circumstances.

Some Individuals Have Developed Such Strong Internal Standards That They No Longer Need The Opinion Of Others To Judge Whether They Have Performed A Task Well Or Not. The Ability To Give Objective Feedback To Oneself Is In Fact The Mark Of The Expert.

To Be Creative, A Person Has To Internalize The Entire System That Makes Creativity Possible. Creative Individuals Are Remarkable For Their Ability To Adapt To Almost Any Situation And To Make Do With Whatever Is At Hand To Reach Their Goals.

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Craig T. Nelson

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