As I was listening to Mihaly Csikszentmihaly talk, two points were interesting to me. One is that lack of basic resources leads to unhappiness, but increasing the amount of resources doesn’t result in more happiness either. So as long as human’s basic needs are met, the amount of income or moving from a three to four bedroom house does not necessarily make them happier. In other words, people with higher incomes and bigger homes may live more comfortably, but they’re not necessarily happier. The important point is that every person’s basic needs are different from others. In my own experience, when I was living away from my family, I wasn’t very happy. Now that I live close to them, although my material resources haven’t changed much, I’m much happier. So would it be correct if I conclude being close to family is one of my basic needs?!
Another point is the concept of flow. When I looked at the definition of Flow which is “the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity”, I realized there is nothing in life that gives me the state of flow. The closest feeling I can recall is speed running tournaments in my junior high years. It was such a great feeling when I was on the tracks. I just wanted to run forever. I’m curious to know how many people that I know experience the feeling of flow and in what way.
No comments:
Post a Comment