This is a book review of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
How I got the book:
Bought my own copy
Background:
Csikszentmihalyi is a psychologist who has been studying humans at work and play for decades, with a particular focus on discovering the conditions in which human beings achieve states of happiness, satisfaction, and engagement with what they are doing. Flow is his attempt to explain these ideas to a large, mainstream audience.
The strengths:
This book gives a lot of great information about ways that people derive enjoyment, engagement, and happiness in the work they do. His definition of psychic entropy was a particular revelation for me: the idea that a mind at rest tends to fill up with negative and occasionally crazy thoughts (OK, this is a slight exaggeration, but still). The author shares his thoughts and observations on how anyone can try to find fulfillment and satisfaction through mental and physical pursuits.
Generally speaking, this is just a great book about finding happiness and satisfaction in your life by looking for quite a spectrum of experiences to full engage yourself.
The areas for improvement:
As good and wonderful as this book is, it can be a bit of a tough slog, especially for today’s reader who scans and looks for landmarks rather than taking a book one word at a time.
Other points of interest:
I have read any of the author’s other books, but I’m looking forward to checking out his book on creativity. He also gave a very interesting TED presentation about flow that you can find on the Web.
Verdict (out of 10): 9 (highly recommended; a valuable resource that can help you sort out your own head)
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I am always amazed at how much wisdom there is from long ago … So this author is supporting the premise, “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”? Assuming of course, the point of getting up early is to actually DO things.