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Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Something
Make
Optimal
Thus
Happen
Experience
Happens

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In large organizations the dilution of information as it passes up and down the hierarchy, and horizontally across departments, can undermine the effort to focus on common goals.
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Half a century ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote that happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy - it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.
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It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.
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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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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.
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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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Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas.
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You yourself are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you almost don't exist. I've experienced this time and again. My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening. I just sit there watching in a state of awe and wonderment. And it just flows out by itself.
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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.
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Happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen.
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Through learning we grow, becoming more than we were before, and in that sense learning is unselfish, because it results in the transformation of what we were before, a setting aside of the old self in favor of a more complex one.
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Problems are solved only when we devote a great deal of attention to them and in a creative way...to have a good life, it is not enough to remove what is wrong with it. We also need a positive goal, otherwise why keep going? Creativity is one answer to that question - It provides one of the most exciting models for living.
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The mood state Americans are in, on average, when watching television is mildly depressed.
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If we are so rich, why aren't we happy?
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Competition is an easy way to get into flow.
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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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Entropy is the normal state of consciousness - a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.
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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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I have a naive trust in the universe - that at some level it all makes sense, and we can get glimpses of that sense if we try.
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