The Flow of Happiness

A lot of people all around the world work, earn money, go on holiday, enjoy themselves, but many of them aren’t happy at all. However, there is another group of people who are poor, have no job, don’t live in fancy houses, are surrounded by problems but still seem really happy. What makes people happy?

A professor named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wanted to find the answer to this question and has interviewed many people who seem to have a happy life. The professor has been studying happiness for more than 30 years. His interest in happiness came from his own experience. When he was a child, he witnessed World War II and saw many people devastated by the terrible events that had been going on. However, there were always a few people who never lost hope, kept their courage, motivated and helped others and tried to find something to hold onto in life. 

His research indicated that people who are unhappy, even though they live in good conditions, can’t enjoy life because they do nothing with their time. Happy people always keep themselves busy and never waste time, either at work or at home. The professor says: “Most people think that the time they spend at school or work is wasted. But the thing they don’t realize is, that often their free time is also wasted. Most people prefer doing passive things like watching TV, playing computer games etc. Since they don’t produce anything and are not active, their lives become boring.”

It’s in our hands to change the situation. The professor realized that people are happy when they get into something he calls ‘flow’. When people are busy with a well-defined and challenging task they like or choose, they experience the ‘flow’, which is a state where nobody notices how time flies. 

They also experience enjoyment. The professor states that there’s a difference between enjoyment and pleasure. I used to think they were the same but in fact they aren’t. Pleasure is like a bar of chocolate or taking a hot bath on a cold day. But enjoyment is about doing and achieving something. What we are doing isn’t important, doing something is important for enjoyment because we try to do our best.