To make the best use of free time, one needs to devote as much
ingenuity and attention to it as one would to one's job. Active leisure
that helps a person grow does not come easily. In fact, before science
and the arts became professionalized, a great deal of scientific
research, poetry, painting, and musical composition was carried out in a
person's free time. And all folk--art the songs, fabrics, pottery, and
carvings that give each culture its particular identity and renown--is
the result of common people striving to express their best skill in the
time left free from work and maintenance chores. Only lack of
imagination, or lack of energy, stand in the way of each of us becoming a
poet or musician, an inventor or explorer, an amateur scholar, scientist,
artist, or collector.
SOCIAL FLOW
Of all the things we do, interaction with others is the least
predictable. At one moment we experience flow, the next apathy, anxiety,
relaxation, or boredom. Over and over, however, our findings suggest that
people get depressed when they are alone, and that they revive when they
rejoin the company of others. The moods that people with chronic
depression or eating disorders experience are indistinguishable from
those of healthy people as long as they are in company and doing
something that requires concentration. But when they are alone with
nothing to do, their minds begin to be occupied by depressing thoughts,
and their consciousness becomes scattered. This is also true, to a less
pronounced extent, of everyone else.
The reason is that when we have to interact with another person,
even stranger, our attention becomes structured by external demands. In
more intimate encounters, the level of both challenges and skills can
grow very high. Thus, interactions have many of the characteristics of
flow activities, and they certainly require the orderly investment of
mental energy. The strong effects of companionship on the quality of
experience suggest that investing energy in relationships is a good way
to improve life.
A successful interaction involves finding some compatibility
between our goals and those of the other person or persons, and becoming
willing to invest attention in the other person's goals. When these
conditions are met, it is possible to experience the flow that comes from
optimal interaction. For example, to experience the simple pleasures of
parenting, one has to pay attention, to know what the child is "proud of"
or "into"; then to share those activities with her. The same holds true
for any other type of interaction. The secret of starting a good
conversation is to find out what the other person's goals are: What is he
interested in at the moment? What is she involved in? What has he or she
accomplished, or is trying to accomplish? If any of this sounds worth
pursuing, the next step is to utilize one's own experience or expertise
on the topics raised by the other person--without trying to take over the
conversation, but developing it jointly. A good conversation is like a
jam session in jazz, where one starts with conventional elements and then
introduces spontaneous variations that create an exciting new
composition.
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
A deprived childhood, abusive parents, poverty, and a host of other
external reasons may make it difficult for a person to find joy in
everyday life. On the other hand, there are so many examples of
individuals who overcame such obstacles that the belief that the quality
of life is determined from the outside is hardly tenable. How much stress
we experience depends more on how well we control attention than on what
happens to us. The effect of physical pain, a monetary loss, or a social
snub depends on how much attention we pay to it. To deny, repress, or
misinterpret such events is no solution either, because the information
will keep smoldering in the recesses of the mind. It is better to look
suffering straight in the eye, acknowledge and respect its presence, and
then get busy as soon as possible focusing on things we choose to focus
on.
To learn to control attention, any skill or discipline one can
master on one's own will serve: meditation and prayer, exercise,
aerobics, martial arts. The important thing is to enjoy the activity for
its own sake, and to know that what matters is not the result, but the
control one is acquiring over one's attention.
It is also important to develop the habit of doing whatever needs
to be done with concentrated attention. Even the most routine tasks, like
washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn, become more rewarding if we
approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. We must
then transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don't like
doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or
something we enjoy doing but don't do often enough because it seems too
much trouble. This sounds simple, but many people have no idea which
components of their lives they actually enjoy. Keeping a diary or
reflecting on the past day in the evening are ways to take stock
systematically of the various influences on one's moods. After it is
clear which activities produce the high points in one's day, it becomes
possible to start experimenting, by increasing the frequency of the
positive ones and decreasing that of others.
Tags:
blissful state,
business deal,
ecstasy,
effortless action,
everyday life,
external circumstances,
flow,
flow experiences,
full attention,
good friend,
happiness,
immersion,
interaction,
lucid account,
mystics,
rapture,
skis,
slope,
Social Interaction,
success,
warm sunshine,
work
