The Wisdom Project

Share this post

In memory of Mihaly🎈

wisdomproject.substack.com

Discover more from The Wisdom Project

Read better, think better, live better. Actionable insights for multi-passionate generalists. Lessons from the best books, podcasts, articles and more. 1 value packed email per week.
Continue reading
Sign in

In memory of Mihaly🎈

#112 | Flow and the psychology of happiness

Ayush 🙏
Oct 24, 2021
2
Share this post

In memory of Mihaly🎈

wisdomproject.substack.com
Share

Hey folks👋

Welcome to Wisdom Letter #112.

This email will take less than 2 minutes.

Today we’re remembering the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Mihaly passed away this week.

He is widely considered the founder of the field of positive psychology.

Basically, before his research, psychology was only used to treat people with mental illnesses.

It wasn’t seen as a tool to improve the quality of life of the general population.

But his research and his idea of “Flow” kickstarted the positive psychology movement in the last 50 years.

He was one of the first few people who scientifically studied the elusive idea of happiness.

Over the years we’ve written and curated some content around his ideas via this newsletter.

Today we take another look at them.

But first, if you’re new, please signup to The Wisdom Project, we send one email per week that helps you become healthy, wealthy, and wise :)

Now, let’s go👇


Flow

In layman’s terms, Flow means a highly productive mental state where we are so engrossed in a task at hand that we forget about everything else in life.

It’s the closest we can get to a universally acceptable definition of happiness.

But how do we achieve that?

By doing tasks that are difficult enough to challenge our skills, but not so difficult that we end up giving them up.

That’s it, that’s how we can practically achieve happiness, be in a state of flow.

And that is also why writing this newsletter every week, gives us so much happiness.

Flow lives in this sweet spot -

Read a longer commentary on the concept of Flow, and other ways to look at happiness in Wisdom Letter #39.

Also, find some interesting reads -

The Wisdom Project
Whole And Happy
Are you a happy person? Or Do you pursue happiness? In your day to day lives, do you think about how happy you are? Do you always do the things that make you happy? Is it even possible to think like that? And if not, then how do you decide what to do, how do you decide something is worth investing your time in…
Read more
3 years ago · 3 likes · Ayush Chaturvedi

More interesting reads and listens around happiness in Wisdom Letter 16 -

The Wisdom Project
Happy And How!
Are you happy? What is happiness to you? Its a loaded word. It often means different things to different people. For some its money, for some its fame, for others its power or achievement or ambition. Its also contentment for some and for some its deep intimate relationships. Its also gratitude sometimes. If you’re lucky then happiness for you is some com…
Read more
4 years ago · 3 likes · Ayush Chaturvedi

To understand his theories better, and to look at Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research process, watch his Ted Talk -


And watch this video summary of his book - Flow, the psychology of happiness.


Austin Kleon, the author of books like Steal Like an Artist and Show your work, wrote a short blog post reflecting on Mihaly’s ideas.

Check it out - A state of flow


Signing off, I just want to say that we’ve learned a lot from Mihaly’s theories, his book, and his research. We’ve tried to model our own lives to achieve optimum flow and will strive to do so continuously.

In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s death, we’ve lost a stalwart and a great mind🙏

One of his best quotes -

The joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe

—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi


You can read the official obituary on his Facebook page.

Thank you for reading🙏

Hope you found value in today’s mail.

If you liked it, please forward it to just 1 friend and ask them to subscribe.

We want to find more folks like you🤗

See you next week.

Cheers,

Ayush & Aditi

2
Share this post

In memory of Mihaly🎈

wisdomproject.substack.com
Share
Comments
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Aditi & Ayush
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing