Quotes About Mastery

By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual.

At certain times in history cultures have taken it for granted that a person wasn't fully human unless he or she learned to master thoughts and feelings.

As Democritus said so simply many centuries ago: "Water can be both good and bad, useful and dangerous. To the danger, however, a remedy has been found: learning to swim.

The ballet dancer may fall, break her leg, and never make the perfect turn, and the chess player may be defeated and never become a champion. But at least in principle, in the world of flow perfection is attainable.

that the body does not produce flow merely by its movements. The mind is always involved as well. To get enjoyment from swimming, for instance, one needs to cultivate a set of appropriate skills, which requires the concentration of attention. Without

Yet we have all experienced times when, instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like.

Developing a discriminating palate, like any other skill, requires the investment of psychic energy. But the energy invested is returned many times over in a more complex experience. The

in the long run optimal experiences add up to a sense of mastery—or perhaps better, a sense of participation in determining the content of life—

But whatever the dictates of fashion, it seems that those who take the trouble to gain mastery over what happens in consciousness do live a happier life.

Getting control of life is never easy, and sometimes it can be definitely painful. But in the long run optimal experiences add up to a sense of mastery—or perhaps better, a sense of participation in determining the content of life—that comes as close to what is usually meant by happiness as anything else we can conceivably imagine.

The challenges of the activity are what force us to concentrate.

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.

AT CERTAIN TIMES in history cultures have taken it for granted that a person wasn't fully human unless he or she learned to master thoughts and feelings.

The important thing is that the energy is under their own control

of the Zen masters might have been excellent in their own time—and might still be the best, if

In the long run optimal experiences add up to a sense of mastery--or perhaps better, a sense of participation in determining the contents of life--that comes as close to what is usually meant by happiness as anything else we can conceivably imagine.

Flow tends to occur when a person's skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable.

The hard reality is that immersion works only when people are actually fluent in something.

But it's like anything, the more time you give it, the better it gets.

That was so f*cking money. That was like the Jedi mind-shit

No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to play like yourself.

Sometimes you have to play for a long time to be able to play like yourself.

To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.