Quotes About Engagement

If one prays in order to be holy, or exercises to develop strong pectoral muscles, or learns to be knowledgeable, then a great deal of the benefit is lost. The important thing is to enjoy the activity for its own sake, and to know that what matters is not the result, but the control one is acquiring over one's attention.

Such individuals lead vigorous lives, are open to a variety of experiences, keep on learning until the day they die, and have strong ties and commitments to other people and to the environment in which they live. They enjoy whatever they do, even if tedious or difficult; they are hardly ever bored, and they can take in stride anything that comes their way.

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

optimal experience based on the concept of flow—the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing

When there are too many demands, options, challenges, we become anxious; when too few, we get bored.

Free time, on the other hand, is unstructured, and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed.

Wir stehen immer kurz davor zu leben«, sagte Ralph Waldo Emerson, »aber wir leben nie.«

When all a person's relevant skills are needed to cope with the challenges of a situation, that person's attention is completely absorbed by the activity.

An open stance makes it possible for a person to be objective, to be aware of alternative possibilities, to feel a part of the surrounding world.

As a result, one of the most universal and distinctive features of optimal experience takes place: people become so involved in what they are doing that the activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic; they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing.

In normal life, we keep interrupting what we do with doubts and questions. "Why am I doing this? Should I perhaps be doing something else?" Repeatedly we question the necessity of our actions, and evaluate critically the reasons for carrying them out. But in flow there is no need to reflect, because the action carries us forward as if by magic.

Setting goals. Becoming immersed in the activity. Paying attention to what is happening. Learning to enjoy the immediate experience.

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.

Although, as we have seen, people generally long to leave their places of work and get home, ready to put their hard-earned free time to good use, all too often they have no idea what to do there.

Flow – the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

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.

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

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.

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.

Without interest in the world, a desire to be actively related to it, a person becomes isolated into himself.

A more substantive potential use of words to enhance our lives is the lost art of conversation.

The reason it is possible to achieve such complete involvement in a flow experience is that goals are usually clear, and feedback immediate.

But even when there is nothing else pressing occupying their minds, most people fall far below the peak capacity for processing information. In the roughly one-third of the day that is free of obligations, in their precious "leisure" time, most people in fact seem to use their minds as little as possible.