Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

When people start believing that progress is inevitable and life easy, they may quickly lose courage and determination in the face of the first signs of adversity.

These are people who, regardless of their material conditions, have been able to improve the quality of their lives, who are satisfied, and who have a way of making those around them also a bit more happy.

The problem arises when people are so fixated on what they want to achieve that they cease to derive pleasure from the present. When that happens, they forfeit their chance of contentment.

“No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.”

“The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly,” in the words of J. H. Holmes. “It is simply indifferent.”

But natural processes do not take human desires into account.

It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.

Therefore it is crucial that one learn to transform jobs into flow-producing activities (chapter 7), and to think of ways of making relations with parents, spouses, children, and friends more enjoyable (chapter 8).

“Flow” is the way people describe their state of mind when consciousness is harmoniously ordered, and they want to pursue whatever they are doing for its own sake.