Catch the Flow Glow

by Roger Martin

I'm betting you're the kind of person who doesn't have to worry about scorpions in the vase on the dresser, jihads or ethnic cleansing, dengue fever or multi-year droughts. I bet you're warm right now. I bet you own a TV, have a reasonably full tummy.

Those are guesses, but here's a fact: If you're an older working American, your average per capita income has more than doubled since 1964, even taking inflation into account.

So here's my question. Given all that, why aren't you happier? Statistics show that in the past half-century, despite becoming more moneyed than ever, despite the fall of the Berlin Wall, we've never had more than 30 to 35 percent of the population calling itself "very happy."

Here are a few more puzzlers.

Within a year to 16 months after winning a million bucks in the lottery, you'll be no happier than you were before you got rich. On the other hand, if you become a paraplegic, though your happiness will sink for a year it will then return to what it was before.

Why does circumstance do so little to move us toward happiness or sadness? I learned one answer at a recent lecture given to the recipients of Madison and Lila Self graduate fellowships at the University of Kansas.

The lecturer was Mihali (me-high) Csikszentmihalyi (CHICK-sent-me-hi-ee), former chair of the psychology department at the University of Chicago. I'll just call him Dr. Mike.

He's researched happiness for decades. He's studied visual artists, musicians, chess players, writers -- people who don't make much money but happily keep doing their thing anyway.

Their doorway to happiness, Dr. Mike has concluded, is what he calls the "flow experience." And it's available to all of us.

Remember, as a kid, being transfixed in the sandbox or on the hopscotch grid? Then you've had a taste of flow. When you're in flow, says Dr. Mike, here's what you experience.

1. You are totally and ecstatically absorbed in what you're doing.
   
   
2. You possess great inner clarity. You know in every moment what to do, and you know immediately whether you've done it right or not.
   
   
3. You know that your skills can meet the challenges of a situation, not that they are less than the situation demands, in which case you feel anxious, or more, in which case you are bored.
   
   
4. You are serene. You forget your problems, expanding beyond your ego's bounds.
   
   
5. Time speeds up. Hours seem like minutes.
   
   
6. You look for no reward beyond that inherent in the activity itself.

Dr. Mike's research indicates that 15 percent of us have never had the flow experience and that another 17 to 20 percent have it every day. The rest fall somewhere in between.

Most people think love or money confers happiness. In short, they think it rides on something outside of themselves. And a certain minimum of those things is no doubt helpful.

But in Dr. Mike's well-researched thinking, happiness comes from mastering skills and then applying them to challenging tasks. High flow moments can happen when you're barn-dancing, interviewing, writing haiku, or playing pick-up basketball.

I believe Dr. Mike. As I wrote this piece, all that existed was me and the plastic click of my keyboard and my memories of what Dr. Mike had said. As I tried out phrases that might corral his meaning, the world dropped away. I floated.

I find it wondrously strange that I can be so happy when, absorbed in a task and oblivious to time, I all but disappear.

It makes me wonder: If I've checked out, then who is it, at that moment, who is being happy?