Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes - Page 5

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Moving, Gourmet, Sound

  "Go with the flow". Interview with John Geirland, www.wired.com. September 1, 1996.

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• Pain and pleasure occur in consciousness and exist only there

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Pain, Consciousness, Pleasure

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• Entropy is the normal state of consciousness - a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Normal, Consciousness, States

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• If we are so rich, why aren't we happy?

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Prosperity, Rich, Ifs

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2014). “Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi”, p.127, Springer

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• But shortcuts are dangerous; we cannot delude ourselves that our knowledge is further along than it actually is.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Shortcuts, Dangerous

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1997). “Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life”, p.3, Basic Books

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Mean, Goal, Use

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Stress, Technology, People

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Order, Important, Quality

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2013). “Flow: The Psychology of Happiness”, p.46, Random House

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Sake, Action, Motive

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• People without an internalized symbolic system can all too easily become captives of the media.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Media, People, Symbolic

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• 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."

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  People, Creative, Different

  "The Creative Personality" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, www.psychologytoday.com. July 1, 1996.

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• Happiness is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated , and defended privately by each person.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Be Prepared, Prepared, Persons

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Faith, Business, Ideas

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2004). “Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning”, p.118, Penguin

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Goal, Everyday, Wish

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• Shift often from openness to closure.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Finishing, Closure, Openness

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• ...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?'"

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Leadership, Business, Max

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2004). “Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning”, p.129, Penguin

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Average, Skills, Challenges

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Memories, Fate, Long

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• Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Mind, Information, Capacity

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• The germ of an idea doesn't make the sculpture that stands up... so the next stage is hard work

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Teaching, Hard Work, Learning

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Fashion, Mastery, Gains

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• 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.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Self, Psychics, Two

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• It is not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the ones we think we have.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Thinking, Skills, Feels

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• There will be no good business unless the majority comes to agree that we should demand more from business than large quarterly returns.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Majority, Demand, Return

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2004). “Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning”, p.21, Penguin

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• Perform with elan, brilliance and dash - at concert pitch.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Concerts, Brilliance

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