Happiness Through Hard Work?

One route to happiness may be to go with the flow -- but be prepared to work hard first.

In an online video of a talk at the TED conference, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about his research into the state of complete absorption that he calls "flow." Those are activities in which you are so deeply involved that you feel outside reality. Composers, basketball players, writers, and others report these sensations. I've talked to computer programmers who say they work the hours they do not for the pay, but because they are in this state. It's very much like meditation and offers similar clarity and fulfillment.

He explains that flow can come from a hobby or work, but it requires that you be doing something you really like to do. The activity must be challenging, but also one that you have the skills to master.

The bad news: he says you need at least ten years of training and practice to attain the skill necessary to do something difficult so effortlessly.

In the end, Csikszentmihalyi says, the experience of flow makes one happy, so we should all look into ourselves to figure out what activities we want to get so involved in that we achieve the rewards he talks about.

Csikszentmihalyi teaches at Claremont and directs the Quality of Life Research Center. He popularized the ideas in the talk in his book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" (available at Amazon here, or in our store).

The twenty minute video is at the TED site here -- it takes a while to get going, but the last ten minutes provide a lot of food for thought.