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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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Much
Creation
Question
Wants
Present
Knowing
Rather
Discovering
Business
Oneself
Self
Sin
More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Only direct control of experience, the ability to derive moment-by-moment enjoyment from everything we do, can overcome the obstacles to fulfillment.
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It is not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the ones we think we have.
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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.
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Those periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times.
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One of the surest ways to enrich life is to make experiences less fleeting.
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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.
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Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look forward to.
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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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Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.
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It is by becoming increasingly complex that the self might be said to grow.
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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.
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Often we don't have a good notion of what our talents are, because we have never had a chance to try them out.
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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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If we are so rich, why aren't we happy?
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One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Shift often from openness to closure.
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