A Challenging Activity That Requires Skills

Given the recurring need to return to this central question of how to achieve mastery over one’s life, what does the present state of knowledge say about it?

The Christian monastic orders perfected various methods for learning how to channel thoughts and desires.

For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue . . . as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.”

3 ENJOYMENT AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE

But challenges are by no means confined to competitive or to physical activities.

When a person becomes so dependent on the ability to control an enjoyable activity that he cannot pay attention to anything else, then he loses the ultimate control: the freedom to determine the content of consciousness.

Ting’s explanation may seem to imply that Yu and flow are the result of different kinds of processes. In fact, some critics have emphasized the differences: while flow is the result of a conscious attempt to master challenges, Yu occurs when the individual gives up conscious mastery. In this sense they see flow as an example of the “Western” search

As Freud and many others before and after him have noted, civilization is built on the repression of individual desires. It would be impossible to maintain any kind of social order, any complex division of labor, unless society’s members were forced to take on the habits and skills that the culture required, whether the individuals liked it or not.