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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
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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 89
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Learn
Action
Become
Ulterior
Motives
Freely
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Rather
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A person who forgoes the use of his symbolic skills is never really free.
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When each of these three elements of vision-concern for excellence, for people and for the wider environment-are present, business is transformed from a tool for making profits into a creative, humane experiment for improving life.
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Happiness is not something that happens ... It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them.
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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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I think that evolution has had a hand in selecting people who had a sense of doing something beyond themselves.
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We shape our life by deciding to pay attention to it. It is the direction of our attention and its intensity that will determines what we accomplish and how well.
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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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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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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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If you're alone with nothing to do, the quality of your experience really plummets.
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...perhaps the most distinguishing trait of visionary leaders is that they believe in a goal that benefits not only themselves, but others as well. It is such vision that attracts the psychic energy of other people, and makes them willing to work beyond the call of duty for the organization.
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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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It is by becoming increasingly complex that the self might be said to grow.
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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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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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However, a good life consists of more than simply the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a trajectory of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive, and social complexity.
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Those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works.
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An ideal organization is one in which each worker's potentialities find room for expression.
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Find out what you like and what you hate about life. Start doing more of what you love, less of what you hate.
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