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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
Capacities
Stretch
Develop
Skills
Capacity
Must
Make

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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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Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.
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Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible. Figure out the implications of the problem. Implement the solution.
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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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If you're alone with nothing to do, the quality of your experience really plummets.
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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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A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening 'outside,' just by changing the contents of consciousness.
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Perform with elan, brilliance and dash - at concert pitch.
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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 not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the ones we think we have.
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Shift often from openness to closure.
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Competition is an easy way to get into flow.
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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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Flow is hard to achieve without effort. Flow is not 'wasting time.
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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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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 expended all our energies solely on taking care of our own needs we would stop growing. In that respect what we call soul can be viewed as the surplus energy that can be invested into change and transformation. As such, it is the cutting edge of evolution.
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To be overcome with the ultimate goal often interferes with performance.
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If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.
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To play the trumpet well, a musician can not let more than a few days pass without practicing.
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