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One must develop skills that stretch capacities, that make one more than what one is.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Must
Make
Capacities
Stretch
Develop
Skills
Capacity

More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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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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But shortcuts are dangerous we cannot delude ourselves that our knowledge is further along than it actually is.
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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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Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution.
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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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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The mood state Americans are in, on average, when watching television is mildly depressed.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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I think that evolution has had a hand in selecting people who had a sense of doing something beyond themselves.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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The task is to learn how to enjoy everyday life without diminishing other people's chances to enjoy theirs.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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To play the trumpet well, a musician can not let more than a few days pass without practicing.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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If we agree that the bottom line of life is happiness, not success, then it makes perfect sense to say that it is the journey that counts, not reaching the destination.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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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
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Competition is an easy way to get into flow.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it. He who desires but acts not, wrote Blake with his accustomed vigor, Breeds pestilence.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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A person who forgoes the use of his symbolic skills is never really free.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Perform with elan, brilliance and dash - at concert pitch.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi