Jogging against the wind, bad mood is excreted with sweat;

On the subway, I read a good book and actually took many stops;

The efficiency of going to work in one day is extremely high, and the problems of the previous day are easy to solve.

When you devote yourself wholeheartedly to something, to the extent of forgetting yourself, so as to gain inner order and peace, a great sense of satisfaction will sneak into your heart and make you happy. This is the experience of "flow".

First, flow is the source of happiness.

Society is progressing, and luxury goods hundreds of years ago have now entered the homes of ordinary people. We live longer, healthier and have better living conditions than the ancients. By rights, we should feel happy enough, right? The opposite is true.

The root of human dissatisfaction

When the monthly income is three or four thousand, I am not happy; When the monthly income is 30 thousand to 40 thousand, I am still unhappy. The pursuit of happiness seems to be the eternal motif of human beings, who are always chasing and never catching up. As Emerson said, "We have all kinds of expectations for life, but we have never really lived." These feelings all stem from the lack of our internal order. It is a feeling that life is meaningless and not worth continuing.

1. Chaos in the universe

Laozi said, "Heaven and earth are heartless, and everything is a grass dog." When the universe was first created, it was not based on human comfort. Individual power cannot shake the way the universe works. Our influence on external forces closely related to the quality of life is indeed insufficient. In the final analysis, our perception of ourselves and the happiness we get from life directly depend on how the brain filters and explains daily experiences.

2. Endless desire

Everyone has a vague idea of what he wants to accomplish in this life, and the degree of achievement of the goal is an indicator to measure the quality of life. However, desire is always expanding, and improving the quality of life is an endless chore, just like a carrot that people hang in front of a donkey to trick it into running forward. In fact, as long as we are happy in the process of struggle, there is nothing wrong with setting new goals; But the problem is that most people always focus on new goals and can't enjoy the present moment, so they are isolated from the happiness of contentment.

When is the happiest person?

Flow is a state in which a person is completely immersed in some activity and ignores the existence of other things. This kind of experience itself will bring great joy and make people willing to pay a huge price.

In order to accurately analyze the feelings of happiness and the reasons for these feelings, Mihaly studied a large number of cases, including hundreds of artists, athletes, musicians, chess masters and surgeons, all of whom took their favorite activities as their occupations. According to their statements, Mihaly established the best experience theory on the basis of the concept of "flow".

What is the best experience? When you are in the best experience, you will feel extremely happy and have the ability to control your actions and dominate your own destiny without being led by inexplicable forces. It's something you've been longing for for for a long time, and it has set a milestone in your pursuit of an ideal life.

Mihaly's "Discovery"

Mihaly found that happiness does not happen immediately; It has nothing to do with luck or probability, and it can't be bought with money, nor can it be cheap; It is not manipulated by external things, but depends on our interpretation of the outside world.

In fact, happiness depends on personal practice, full preparation in advance, deliberate cultivation and maintenance. Only those who learn to control their minds can decide their own quality of life; With this ability, it is equivalent to approaching the realm of happiness.

The tortuous road to happiness begins with the control of consciousness.

Second, control consciousness and improve the quality of experience.

To control consciousness, we must first understand how it works, which is also the purpose of this chapter.

Several important concepts about consciousness

1. Consciousness and intention

Consciousness is something we can feel and have the ability to guide its direction, such as emotions, feelings, thoughts and attempts.

Intention is to transform conscious information into the power of order. Just say that the concept is a bit abstract, let's use examples to understand it.

case study

Because she didn't have breakfast, Ms. A had a little hypoglycemia. She feels uneasy, irritable, sweating and stomachache. (this is not consciousness, and Ms. A can't control them. So, Ms. A began to think about having breakfast (hunger instinct mobilized her consciousness), going out to have a good meal, or frying an egg at home to make do? With the consciousness of eating breakfast, I'm going to help her organize sensory information to make a decision. Finally, she chose to go out, went to a dumpling shop, ate a bowl of small wonton and some dumplings, and finally felt much more comfortable.

2. Pay attention to and shape each other.

Attention is responsible for picking out relevant information from millions of bits of information, extracting relevant reference data from memory, then evaluating time and taking correct countermeasures.

Self contains everything through consciousness: memory, action, desire, fun, pain and so on. More importantly, this self represents the order of the goals we have built up bit by bit. For example, a banker's ego may be included in his investment strategy.

Attention shapes itself and is also shaped by itself. Below, we understand this mutual shaping relationship through a story.

case study

Sam Browning, a boy of 15 years old, doesn't know what he will do with his life. This Christmas, his father took him to the coral reefs and diving in Bermuda. When Sam saw these mysterious, beautiful and dangerous underwater worlds, he was completely fascinated. Since then, he has taken many biology courses in high school. He wants to be a marine scientist, instead of going to college, getting married, having children and living in the suburbs.

In this story, Sam accidentally discovered the beauty of the underwater world, and his concern helped him rebuild himself; Later, he could pursue the knowledge of marine life, and he began to shape his attention.

Intrinsic disorder

Whenever information threatens the goal of consciousness, there will be an internal disorder phenomenon, which can also be called spiritual entropy.

(Further reading: Entropy, originally a thermodynamic term, is used to measure the degree of chaos in a system. The so-called entropy increase principle is that "in an isolated system, there is no energy exchange between the system and the environment, and the system always changes spontaneously in the direction of increasing chaos, which always increases the entropy value of the whole system." In this book, Mihaly uses "entropy" to describe the degree of insanity, which is called psychological entropy. )

Julio, a worker mentioned in the video, was troubled by tire deflation, unable to concentrate on his work, and his life became a mess. This is a typical internal disorder.

External events enter consciousness, which are purely information and do not necessarily have positive or negative effects. They must be interpreted by the self according to its own interests in order to decide whether it is harmful or not.

A new message may make us make all efforts to deal with threats, leading to confusion of consciousness. It may also strengthen our goals and stimulate more spiritual energy. At this time, you are very likely to enter the opposite of spiritual entropy-optimal experience.

Consciousness is orderly.

Contrary to the spiritual entropy, when the received information is close to the target, the spiritual energy will continue, and there is no need to worry or doubt your ability.

When the optimal experience appears, one can devote all his attention to achieving the goal; There is no disorder to be corrected, and the ego is not threatened, so there is no need for distraction and defense. This is what we call "flow experience". Some people describe this experience as "a torrent leading me".

If one can completely control consciousness and create flow experience as much as possible, the quality of life will inevitably improve. Rico is a typical case.

case study

Rico is a colleague of Julio's and works on another assembly line. Every time he completes a unit, the stipulated time is 43 seconds, and he needs to repeat it about 600 times every working day. Really boring and heavy! But Rico has been doing this kind of work for five years, and he is not tired at all, but he still feels very happy. The secret is that when he is working, he demands himself as an Olympic athlete, and he often thinks about how to break his own record.

Key words of growth and mobility

In his research, Mihaly found that all flow activities, whether involving competition, speculation or other forms of experience, have one thing in common: it brings a new discovery, a creative feeling and brings the parties into a new reality. It urges a person to behave better, and makes consciousness reach a realm that was never dreamed of in the past.

To help you understand, let's assume that the picture below represents a special activity (you can associate it with what you do most often). The letter A stands for you, and the chart shows the four stages you went through when you did it:

Stage A (1): You just started to do it, you don't know any skills, and the challenge is easy.

As time goes by, you enter the A 2 stage: your skills increase, your challenges remain unchanged, and you start to get bored; Or enter the A3 stage: the challenge is increased, but the skills are not improved, and you will feel anxious at this time.

Ordinary people may give up if they stay in this state, but you hear the flow and make a wiser choice:

You in A2 stage: Increase your demands on yourself (that is, increase your challenges), and you will soon feel the pleasure of doing it.

You in A3 stage: Through practice, you have improved your skills and easily qualified for difficult challenges, which makes you feel very proud.

So the key to mobility is growth, and growth makes the self more complicated and different.

Third, the elements of mobility.

Mihaly found in the research object that no matter how different the activities are, when they go very smoothly, the feelings of being a party are very similar. In addition, regardless of culture, modernization, social class, age, and gender, the flow experience described by the respondents is roughly the same. Accordingly, Mihaly summed up several elements of mobility, which can be summarized as follows:

A challenging activity

There is a golden ratio between challenges and skills. When the timing of action is just equal to the ability of the parties, fun will appear. Take badminton as an example. If the opponent is too strong, you will feel anxious, if the opponent is too weak, you will feel bored. And fun seems to be a barrier between boredom and anxiety, where challenge and action ability are just balanced.

Unity of knowledge and action, concentration.

Once you enter the flow, you will forget all the trivial things in life. At this time, there is no room for irrelevant information in your mind, and spiritual entropy can't be used.

The parties are absorbed, and all actions are almost automatic without thinking; Their consciousness even disappeared, and people and actions were completely integrated. However, this seemingly effortless feeling still needs to consume a lot of physical strength or receive strict mental training; It requires superb skills, and as soon as you relax, you may disappear without a trace.

Clear goals and timely feedback

The reason why the flow experience can be fully engaged is because the goal is clear and you can get immediate feedback. Feedback can be interesting as long as it is reasonably related to the goals we pursue with spiritual energy. For example, the evaluation of an article is abstract, but when the author expects his work to be liked, the reader's positive evaluation will become a kind of feedback.

Be in control

Recreational activities such as games and sports are often the source of fun, but these activities are far from daily life and have endless difficulties. There is nothing wrong with losing a game of chess, but the stock you bought can be destroyed. Therefore, the typical description of flow refers to "sense of control"-or more precisely, it is not like daily life, always worried that things will get out of control.

Forget yourself.

It is difficult to make it clear in rational language. Let's use the words of a Japanese Noichi to describe this state!

"When all the feelings are at their best. I have a feeling that when we started running, we had not yet entered a state of complete harmony. When we enter the state, our hearts become one. At this time, it was a real happiness ... Suddenly, I thought,' If we can speed up to the fastest, it would be great to really run!' At this time, everyone stepped on the accelerator in unison, as if it were true. Amazing speed, this moment is really wonderful! "

Of course, we don't encourage you to be a wild one. As the author said, fun lies not in what you do, but in how you do it. Master the secret of flow, anything can make you experience flow.

Abnormal sense of time

Some subjects will feel that their sense of time is different from that of peacetime when they experience flow. Often hours seem to be only a few minutes; Most people think that time flies faster, but sometimes it's just the opposite. A ballerina said that when making a difficult turn, a fraction of a second in reality can be extended to a few minutes.

Flow experience, like everything in the world, cannot be absolutely good. We must realize the addictive magic of flow, because the feeling of the temporary disappearance of spiritual entropy is so charming! At the same time, the power of the best experience may also be abused, which can be used to benefit mankind (Mother Teresa) or to destroy (Hitler). Our test is to find fun in our daily life on the one hand, and not to let others' fun be adversely affected on the other. Fourth, look for flow in daily life.

Traffic is not easy, but almost everyone can improve their ability in this area. With proper training, you can also get flow in all aspects of daily life, such as walking, eating, exercising, playing games, doing exercises and reading.

A complacent character

Does everyone have the same potential to get traffic? The answer is no, just as some people are born with good muscle coordination, and some people are born with a sense of control and a gift for getting flow, which the author calls a self-satisfied personality.

Dr. Jane Hamilton's experiment

Subjects are required to look at a contradictory image first, and then "flip" it in their minds, that is, think of the prominent part of the picture as concave inward and the concave part as convex outward.

Dr Hamilton found that:

You need to see more points before you can turn the contradictory figure over. Such people are very dependent on the external environment and lack control over their own thoughts, so they are not easy to enjoy the pleasure of experience.

You can succeed only by looking at a few points, and sometimes you can turn it over even by looking at a point. You can often achieve the best experience by being less bound by the environment, paying more attention and easily readjusting the experience structure.

The Influence of Family on Flow Experience

The character of enjoying oneself is not only innate, but also influenced by the acquired family environment.

Kevin Larson found in an experiment at the University of Chicago that the parent-child relationship belongs to a certain type of teenagers, and in most cases, they are happier, more satisfied and stronger than their peers without this relationship. There are five characteristics of the family environment that help to produce the best experience:

The first is "clarity". Teenagers know what their parents expect of them-goals and feedback are clear in family interaction.

The second is "attention". Children feel that their parents are deeply interested in what they are doing and their specific feelings and experiences, instead of blindly hoping that their children can go to a good university or find a well-paid job in the future.

The third is "choice". Children feel that they have many choices, including not listening to their parents-they are just prepared to bear the consequences themselves.

The fourth is "devotion", that is, let children have enough self-confidence, put down the shield of self-defense and self-awareness, and do what they are interested in wholeheartedly.

Finally, there is "challenge", that is, parents arrange complicated and gradual action opportunities for their children.

How do you cultivate the character of enjoying yourself?

The difference between a person who can find pleasure in life and a person who is overwhelmed by life is nothing more than the synthesis of external factors and his personal interpretation of these factors, that is, he regards challenges as threats or opportunities for action. The rules for cultivating such a self are very simple and directly derived from the elements of flow, which can be simply summarized as follows:

1. Set the target. To experience flow, you must first have a clear goal.

2. concentrate. Learn to strike a balance between the opportunities for action and the skills you have. The stronger the concentration, the easier it is to invest.

3. avoid being too self-centered. A person who is self-centered in everything and only seeks self-interest may feel very safe, but compared with a person who is willing to engage in activities around him for interaction, the former's self is very poor.

4. Seek pleasure from the present experience. Being able to control your thoughts can make what happens around you a source of fun.

Paradox of work

At work, people feel happy, powerful, creative and satisfied when facing challenges and displaying their skills; In their spare time, they will feel sad, weak, slow and dissatisfied because they have nothing to do and their skills are useless. But people still like to work less and have more leisure.

Psychological experience sampling method

More than 100 full-time male and female workers in different industries are required to wear pagers for one week, and the pager will ring eight times a day. As soon as they hear the noise, they have to fill out a two-page questionnaire in a small manual to record what they did and their mood.

In addition, they must indicate how many challenges they perceive around them and how many skills they consciously use on a scale of 10. When a person's challenge level and skill application are higher than the weekly average, it is considered as a state of flow.

In this series of surveys, Mihaly has collected 4,800 questionnaires, and the conclusions are as follows:

The longer the flow state, the higher the overall experience quality of the reaction.

Mobility mostly occurs at work, accounting for 54%, and rarely occurs in leisure, accounting for only18%; The proportion of indifference is only 28% at work and over 52% at leisure.

Dissatisfaction with work mainly comes from three aspects: lack of change and challenge; There are too many interpersonal conflicts and pressures at work. The author gives a prescription for the last point: the real solution to work stress is to regard it as a strategy to improve the quality of experience (an activity more valuable than watching TV).

At the same time, the author thinks that leisure is also very important. It can make us feel relaxed after work, and it can also play a role according to our needs like work. People who learn to have fun at work and not waste their leisure time will feel that life is more valuable.