Quotes from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

This is not to imply that a return to the rigid values and limited choices of the past would be preferable—even if that were a possibility, which it is not. The complexity and freedom that have been thrust upon us, and that our ancestors had fought so hard to achieve, are a challenge we must find ways to master.

attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.

It is true that if one finds flow in work, and in relations with other people, one is well on the way toward improving the quality of life as a whole.

consciousness is not a strictly linear system, but one in which circular causality obtains. Attention shapes the self, and is in turn shaped by it.

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

The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow.

what we call religion is actually the oldest and most ambitious attempt to create order in consciousness.

It is the full involvement of flow, rather than happiness, that makes for excellence in life. When we are in flow, we are not happy, because to experience happiness we must focus on our inner states, and that would take away attention from the task at hand.

Men are not afraid of things, but of how they view them," said Epictetus

Yet we cannot reach happiness by consciously searching for it. "Ask yourself whether you are happy," said J. S. Mill, "and you cease to be so." It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.

means that we must constantly reevaluate what we do, lest habits and past wisdom blind us to new possibilities.

Marcus Aurelius wrote: "If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.

A person who is healthy, rich, strong, and powerful has no greater odds of being in control of his consciousness than one who is sickly, poor, weak, and oppressed. The difference between someone who enjoys life and someone who is overwhelmed by it is a product of a combination of such external factors and the way a person has come to interpret them—that is, whether he sees challenges as threats or as opportunities for action.

Even the most highly respected physicist, artist, or politician becomes a hollow bore and ceases to enjoy life if all he can interest himself in is his limited role in the universe. 4.

The autotelic self transforms potentially entropic experience into flow.

In any case, an individual can experience only so much. Therefore, the information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important; it is, in fact, what determines the content and the quality of life.

Information enters consciousness either because we intend to focus attention on it or as a result of attentional habits based on biological or social instructions.

This ability to persevere despite obstacles and setbacks is the quality people most admire in others, and justly so; it is probably the most important trait not only for succeeding in life, but for enjoying it as well.

How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depend directly on how to the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. [...] To do that we must learn to achieve mastery over consciousness itself.

Pero si una persona se toma unos momentos para reflexionar, el desencanto vuelve: tras cada éxito se ve con mayor claridad que el dinero, el poder, la posición social y las posesiones, por sí mismas, no añaden ni un ápice a la calidad de vida.

the worst moods are reported when one is alone and there is nothing that needs to be done.

Of the many causes that shaped St. Francis's actions, a primary one was the belief that his actions mattered, and that he had a responsibility to change the world around him. This belief, in itself, is a "cause." The idea of free will is a self-fulfilling prophecy; those who abide by it are liberated from the absolute determinism of external forces. Chance

Hay tantas cosas de las que debemos preocuparnos y tan poco tiempo para atenderlas todas…

A similar distinction is that between discovered life themes, when a person writes the script for her actions out of personal experience and awareness of choice; and accepted life themes, when a person simply takes on a predetermined role from a script written long ago by others. Both