This chapter concerns flow experiences, or flow states. It is good to learn to cultivate a state of flow in whatever you do. These are states in which you can experience deep levels of happiness. The more time you can spend experiencing self-created happiness, the closer you are to finding lasting happiness. Notice that I use the words “self-created happiness.” As we will see, that is, in a sense, what flow is.
Flow is a state of being in which we feel in control of our actions, and masters of our fate. It is an “optimal experience,” which most of us have had at one time or another in our lives. It may also be the state in which most of us are happiest.
The best introduction to flow is the book Flow, by a professor of psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.[149] The author describes a flow experience as “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.”
Flow is a state of consciousness wherein you lose yourself in a particular task, experience a sense of mastery, and from this experience emerge a more complex human being. It is usually a very enjoyable state, and for those who do not experience it often, a very memorable one. It is also an experience you create yourself. You create it because it is not a reaction to what you do, but instead results from the way you enter into activities.
Happiness and Flow
How can we call someone happy when that person experiences flow? I will let you answer this question yourself. Try to remember a time, however brief, when you were performing a challenging task, and at the same time you felt totally in control and confident. You forgot everything else in the world and focused all your attention and energy on that task. Perhaps you experienced a feeling of exhilaration. When you finished, you knew you did a great job, and that you learned something about both the task and yourself. You felt great! You also wanted that experience again. You were probably experiencing flow.
Does this sound like happiness? The author of Flow thinks so. He says that the optimal experiences that come with flow can add up to a sense of mastery or control over your mind. This sense of mastery “comes as close to what is usually meant by happiness as anything else we can conceivably imagine.”[150]
The professor also says that you cannot chase happiness. You have to create it yourself. Although the good things of this world, such as wealth, power, and sex, appear to make us happy, they do not ultimately improve the quality of life. Religion, philosophy, and the arts can provide reasons to be happy; but, according to the author, after a time they lose their power to sustain us. “Only direct control of experience, the ability to derive moment-by-moment enjoyment from everything we do, can overcome the obstacles to fulfillment.” [151]
The importance of flow, for the purposes of this book, is that the experience does not necessarily depend on what you are doing. It is, in a sense, self-created happiness. You can be in an enjoyable state of flow while doing work that others would call the most boring jobs imaginable, such as working on an assembly line.
Midway Between Conditional and Unconditional Happiness
The happiness that results from a flow experience is not exactly like the conditional happiness I have described in this book. It does not come from what you do, but rather comes from the way you do it. However, it does come from doing things, so it is not unconditional happiness, either. It is perhaps midway between the two.
The fact that flow may be midway between conditional and unconditional happiness makes it an experience that is important to cultivate. If you can regularly create an experience of flow in what you do, then you will clearly understand that happiness is always there for you, if you can learn to recognize and go with it.
Another feature of flow that makes it different from unconditional happiness is that it is usually an unemotional and perhaps unconscious experience. While people report happiness in connection with a flow activity, they do so after the fact. During the activity, there may be no sense of self at all, and the awareness of happiness does not arise.[152] Unconditional happiness, on the other hand, is a conscious experience.
Controlling Consciousness
A flow experience depends on your being able to control your conscious awareness. To be conscious can mean many things, but for purposes of this discussion, it means having the ability to control your thoughts and sensations. Consciousness involves the intentional ordering of information, so that when we are conscious, the way in which we experience reality is the result of our own process of selection, ordering, and classification of information. The information I refer to is the experience of the phenomena inside and outside of our bodies. Through our intentionality, we construct from this information a personal version of reality.
One particular component of consciousness is the concept of “self.” It is the internal image of yourself with which you identify, and what you usually mean when you refer to yourself as “me.” It is the ego. According to the author of Flow, the “self” is a very important aspect of consciousness. It forms from the contents of consciousness a model of the way things (including ourselves) work. [153] Those things that we are aware of, and turn our attention to, continually work to create the self. The self, in turn, determines what we choose to bring into awareness.
Implicit in consciousness is the intentional selection, filtering, and ordering of information. We consciously control what we allow ourselves to bring into awareness. We filter out of consciousness a great many of the events that happen around us and inside of us. The force within us that actively works with our raw awareness of events, to create a sensible reality, is our intention, or our intentionality.
The process of attention, or attending to certain things and ignoring or filtering out others, is the way we limit the information coming into consciousness to what we can make comprehensible to ourselves. It is possible, for example, to listen to someone talking to us in a crowded room, but only by filtering out all of the other conversations that we hear going on around us.
The ability to control our attention and awareness is not absolute. While the things that we think, feel, and attend to are not controlled entirely by biology, we are still creatures of instinct, and what rises to conscious awareness is often the result of genetic programming. However, we can to some extent override our instinctual reactions, and direct our attention at will. In other words, the content of consciousness, while to some extent controlled by biology, is not entirely under its control.
The author of Flow stresses that merely by changing the contents of consciousness a person can make him/herself happy, or miserable, no matter what is happening in life.[154] What the author seems to be saying is, within limits, a person can override the natural reactions to what is happening, and create a feeling of happiness, through control of consciousness. The book you are reading is, of course, entirely in agreement with what the professor is saying here.
Because controlling the contents of consciousness, by itself, can enable a person to be happy and content in virtually any circumstance, the invitation to happiness is constant. A person who can focus attention at will, and thereby control the content of consciousness, and who can concentrate on a task for as long as it takes to complete it, usually enjoys everyday life.
Studies of individuals who report an above-average incidence of flow experiences indicate that these people have an unusual ability to control and concentrate their attention. Since one of the requirements for a flow experience is the ability to concentrate one’s attention, those with this ability can derive increased enjoyment of life via flow.
Meditation, discussed earlier, is the practice of controlling one’s attention and awareness. As you become more proficient in meditation, you will develop the power to focus your attention where you want it at other times as well. This greater ability to concentrate can, by itself, make you happier.
Entering Flow Through Control of Consciousness
You enter into flow through control of your conscious attention.[155] In Flow, the author describes this as creating “order in consciousness.” He says that order exists when an individual attends to realistic goals, and when his/her skills meet the requirements for those goals.[156] Another way to think about creating order in consciousness is, it is a process of bringing the interior life, the life of the mind, into harmony, both within itself and with the world outside.
Two necessary components for a flow experience are skills and challenges. An activity must present challenges to you at a particular skill level. If the activity does not present challenges, you will quickly be bored, and you will not have the intense concentration necessary for flow. On the other hand, if the activity presents challenges well beyond your skills, then anxiety sets in, and again you cannot enter flow. Only when the activity presents you with challenges to your skills is there a possibility that you will experience the feelings of control, mastery, and concentration necessary for a flow experience.
The three other requirements for a flow experience are the ability to concentrate on the task, having clear goals, and experiencing immediate feedback as to whether you have accomplished the task successfully.
In summary, the requirements are challenge, skill, concentration, clear goals, and feedback.
How Does Flow Feel?
In his book, Csikszentmihalyi describes various people performing actions in flow states. He pays particular attention to surgeons, who spend long hours in operations, immersed in flow states. The author discusses the “high” that many surgeons get, and how they are always eager to get into surgery because they want that “high.”
We have all watched shows about doctors on television, and perhaps tried to imagine what it must be like to spend eight to ten hours in complex surgery. What would it feel like? Obviously, to be effective, the surgeon must leave emotions outside of the operating room. The surgeon must be totally focused, and mentally present during the entire procedure. Aside from perhaps scratching an itch, the surgeon cannot think of himself or herself because that pulls attention away from the task. You could say that the surgeon must be “ego-less.” One of the attributes or requirements for a “flow state” is mastery of what you are doing. Certainly, the surgeon must be a master of the craft in order to enter into a flow state.
When the requirements for entering flow are present: [157]
• You can perform with a kind of effortless involvement in the task that permits you to forget about your everyday cares.
• You experience a pleasurable sense of control.
• Concern for self disappears. In fact, even awareness of self may disappear as you immerse yourself in the task.
• You may lose any real sense of time.
Flow and the Game of Go
Many years ago, a friend and I used to spend afternoons playing the ancient game of Go. The basic rules of the game are deceptively simple; however, it is quite a difficult game to master. We were evenly matched, and challenged each other. Sometimes I won and sometimes he won. Were all of the elements present for a flow experience? Yes, they were. The game was challenging, but I went into each game knowing I had the skill to win. We were both free to concentrate. The goals of the game were clear. Finally, because there was always a clear winner, we both had immediate feedback.
Was there a flow experience? Absolutely. I recall moving my pieces effortlessly, and always feeling that I was in control of my game. We both forgot about everything except the game, and time did not exist for us.
I remember many times we would put a pot of coffee on the stove, and the next thing we knew all of the water from the pot had evaporated and the pot was starting to smoke. I look back with great fondness on those games. They are, for me, treasured memories.
Autotelic Experiences
According to the author, Flow is the way people describe their emotional state when they are pursuing an activity for its own sake.[158] Pursuing an activity for its own sake is what the author refers to as an autotelic experience. For many, these are hobbies or leisure pastimes. They may also be paying jobs of a kind that one would be willing to do for free. (Autotelic derives from the Greek aut (self) and telos (end; goal)). An autotelic activity is one performed for itself, and not for any future benefit. [159]
An autotelic experience is psychically valuable, and can result in an optimal emotional state. This is because the person is focusing on the activity itself, for its own sake, and not on some expected reward.
An activity is not autotelic if you focus your attention on its consequences, such as the money or prestige you can earn by successfully performing the activity. In other words, an autotelic activity is intrinsically rewarding in the present, whereas you usually perform other activities with an eye to future benefit.
Meditation is an autotelic experience if, while meditating, you attend only to what you are doing in the here and now. In other words, you perform the act for the sole purpose of being in a meditative state. If, on the other hand, you focus on the expected benefits, meditation may not be autotelic, and may not be terribly effective.
Flow and the Feeling of No-Self
In a flow experience, you are so caught up in the activity that you may forget about yourself as a discrete person apart from the task. Sometimes you may feel that you are “one” with the activity, and sometimes you may have no awareness of yourself at all. There is just a task, or an artistic expression, and you may not be aware of yourself performing the task or action. You may be aware only of the performance of the task.[160]
You can pay attention to only a limited number of internal or external inputs at any one time. The expression, “He cannot walk and chew gum at the same time” may not describe many people, but it does humorously acknowledge limits on our ability to think of more than one thing at a time. How many accidents have been caused by someone trying to text while driving?
When you engage in a task that meets the requirements for a flow activity, you simply have no attention left over to think about yourself. It is a cliché, but an apt one, that if you want to forget about something, just lose yourself in your work.
Imagine sitting on a beach, all by yourself, looking at the waves coming in, and brooding about something critical that someone said about you the day before, which made you feel bad at the time. There is nothing you can do about it now, and there is no sense in even thinking about it, but it is there, stuck in your head, weighing you down.
Now, imagine that you notice a wave far offshore that is just forming a crest. You focus on it and follow it all the way to the beach. Then you find another wave and follow that one in as well. Doing so is challenging, because with so much happening you can lose track of which wave is which, unless your attention is total. With complete attention focused on the waves, you can lose yourself.
After a time, you may notice that while watching the waves you completely forgot about everything else. Then for the next hour you sit, watching the waves, completely absorbed, not thinking of anything, just watching. Could such an experience be pleasurable? Most people would find that just being able to let go of worry is pleasure in itself.
Why This Works
What we know is that flow experiences are pleasurable and that we seek them, whether we know it or not. People often find flow experiences in their hobbies, such as golf, chess, model building, reading, rock climbing, and skiing.
When left to its own devices, the mind often seems to abide in a state of low-level anxiety. This anxiety is perhaps a survival mechanism, which kept us alert to the many dangers in ancient jungles, and keeps us safe now in the modern jungle. The mind is constantly reacting to surrounding stimuli, automatically remembering various bad things that happened in order to avoid them in the future. You may experience this anxiety as unhappiness or dissatisfaction, which does not go away as long as your mind is unfocused.
Flow experiences focus the mind, moving attention away from free-floating anxiety. This absence of anxiety is itself pleasurable (something like the pleasure associated with the removal of physical pain). As long as attention is not focusing on some new annoyance, threat, or danger, the result should be the kind of happiness that is natural to you.
People seem to get the most pleasure from pastimes that have the requirements for a flow experience: challenging, but doable; presenting clear goals; the freedom to let go of other concerns and concentrate on the activity; and immediate feedback. Sports, puzzles, and video games, for example, all have these elements. Some people are able to organize their work in ways that provide these elements.
As a professional writer, I can often enter a flow experience while writing. I have a quiet office, with few interruptions; writing is challenging, but I have the necessary skills; writing has clear goals; and I get immediate feedback when I read what I wrote.
Limitations on Pursuing Flow Experiences
While flow can make you happy, it has a significant limitation — it is tied to what you do and how you do it. It is an inherently short-term experience. If your flow experience comes from playing golf, or playing video games, you lose the experience when you stop. It is true that you can pursue such pastimes for long periods, but you also have to work, go to school, interact with your family and friends, and sleep. If you pursue only flow activities, you face the serious risk of burnout, and the possibility that the rest of your life will simply fall apart.
The practices in this book aimed at finding unconditional happiness provide a long-term alternative to relying on flow states. These practices teach you how to pull your attention away from the mind’s idling state, that familiar state of low-level anxiety, and allow your mind to rest in a natural state of happiness. Such a state of awareness can even be your constant experience. It is not limited to periods when you are pursuing activities that lead to a state of flow.
Similarities Between Flow and Yoga
The author of Flow says that the similarities between flow and yoga are strong. He suggests that we “think of yoga as a very thoroughly planned flow activity,” requiring us to give up self-interest and personal desires. The ability to do this requires significant control over consciousness. The development of such control makes yoga a systematic way of falling into flow.[161]
He says that most of the practices in yoga aim to train a person to control consciousness, which is exactly what flow requires. While yoga may lead to much higher states of consciousness, both flow and yoga aim at controlling consciousness. Such control enables us to realize flow-like states while practicing yoga.
The Flow of Sisyphus
Let us return to our hero of Chapter 1, Sisyphus. As you recall, his life is limited to pushing a boulder up a mountain. Imagine him bending his weight to the boulder, slowly pushing it up the seemingly indifferent mountain. Every muscle is straining; sweat runs down his broad back, and his face is tight with the effort. The slope is bare of vegetation, and he has nothing to distract him from the task. The task is challenging, requiring all of his attention. He is unaware of himself and unaware of time. He is aware of only the task. He is in flow.
Perhaps the experience of Sisyphus is not much different from that of a long-distance runner, immersed in the flow of running. Distance runners often experience flow. I recall the unique feeling of flow that I experienced when I used to run for two or three miles.
The problem for runners and other athletes, who crave the high from pushing their bodies hard, is that the body wears out. In my case, it was the knees. They could not take the pounding, and my doctor said I had to do something else.
Sisyphus’s legendary body probably never got older. This enabled him to push the boulder forever. For eternity, he might experience flow as he pushes the boulder up the mountain. After the boulder rolled back down, he could savor his victory as he made the long trip back down the mountain to begin his task again.
Find Flow in Your Life
We all have 24 hours in a day to fill, and humans are meant to do things. You should spend at least some of these hours in flow. Flow is something to look forward to each day. It is also a state that improves you and recharges your batteries.
Think about what you do during the day. Do you regularly experience flow? If not, can you make what you do into a flow experience? If not, can you find something you can do that has the elements of flow?
Any activity can be a flow experience if approached the right way. In Flow, the author talks about a man who worked on an assembly line. His job was to perform the same series of tasks on a unit as it passed his station. This man approached his task not as a tedious job, but as a challenge. He challenged himself to perform his task in the shortest time possible. He approached his task in such a way that it was a flow experience for him. The author reported him as still enjoying his job after five years.[162]
If you cannot find flow in your work, and you cannot change jobs, look for flow in an absorbing and challenging hobby. Is there something you like to do that so absorbs you that you lose track of time? It can be building something, playing a game, playing a sport, or learning a new language.
A hobby that delivers flow can be anything, as long as it has the elements of flow. As you look for a hobby, remember these elements — challenge, skill, concentration, clear goals, and feedback.