I cannot stress enough the importance of finding your flow. Once you do, almost every other activity will fade in comparison. You’ll have access to a constant source of enjoyment that gives meaning to everything you do. But it doesn’t have to stop there.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (September 29, 1934–October 20, 2021), the author of “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,” insists that some people have the ability to create it within a wider community.
To illustrate his point, he starts by showing how those in the public arena can better use their power and influence for the benefit of the many instead of the select few:
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Unfortunately, many people who move in the public arena do not act at very high levels of complexity. Politicians tend to seek power, philanthropists fame, and would-be saints often seek to prove how righteous they are.
It is more difficult, but much more fulfilling, for the politician to actually improve social conditions, for the philanthropist to help out the destitute, and for the saint to provide a viable model of life to others.
Csikszentmihalyi goes on to write that “perhaps the most powerful effect flow theory could have in the public sector is in providing a blueprint for how institutions may be reformed so as to make them more conducive to optimal experience.” Then he adds:
A community should be judged good not because it is technologically advanced, or swimming in material riches; it is good if it offers people a chance to enjoy as many aspects of their lives as possible, while allowing them to develop their potential in the pursuit of ever greater challenges.
Similarly, the value of a school does not depend on its prestige, or its ability to train students to face up to the necessities of life, but rather on the degree of the enjoyment of lifelong learning it can transmit.
A good factory is not necessarily the one that makes the most money, but the one that is most responsible for improving the quality of life for its workers and its customers.
And the true function of politics is not to make people more affluent, safe or powerful, but to let as many as possible enjoy an increasingly complex existence.
In a sentiment that calls to mind Eckhart Tolle’s meditation on what it really means to be yourself, Csikszentmihalyi writes that this vital transformation has to happen first:
No social change can come about until the consciousness of individuals is changed first. When a young man asked Carlyle how he should go about reforming the world, Carlyle answered, ‘Reform yourself. That way there will be one less rascal in the world.’ The advice is still valid. Those who try to make life better for everyone without having learned to control their own lives first usually end up making things worse all around.
Complement with why you should read “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
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