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..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.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Become
Habit
Assume
Responses
Part
Conditions
Beliefs
Evolved
Come
Results
Inevitable
Options
Must
Practice
Assuming
Random
Believe
Belief
Response
Practices
Things
Chance
Result
Norm
Norms
People
Happiness
Neither
Interfere
Culture
Necessary
Habits
Accidental

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I think that evolution has had a hand in selecting people who had a sense of doing something beyond themselves.
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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.
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Entropy is the normal state of consciousness - a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Getting control of life is never easy, and sometimes it can be definitely painful.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen.
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But shortcuts are dangerous we cannot delude ourselves that our knowledge is further along than it actually is.
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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
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Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas.
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One must develop skills that stretch capacities, that make one more than what one is.
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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.
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Try to be inspired by something every day. Try to inspire at least one person every day.
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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.
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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.
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