Finding flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Quotes II

-Experience takes place in time, so time is the ultimate scarce resource we have.
-Over the years, the content of experience will determine the quality of life.
-One of the most essential decisions any of us can make is about how one's time is allocated or invested.
-What our life is consists in experiences related to work, to keeping things we already have from falling apart, and to whatever else we do in our free time.
-Everyday life is defined not only by what we do, but also by who we are with.
-While what we do day in and day out has a lot to do with what kind of life we have, how we experience what we do is even more important.
-Beyond the threshold of poverty, additional resources do not appreciably improve the chances of being happy.
-When we feel active and strong we are also more likely to feel happy.
-The choice of what we do will also affect our happiness.
-Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.
-Goals that we pursue will shape and determine the kind of self that we are to become.
-Without a consistent set of goals, it is difficult to develop a coherent self.
-To make sure that we survive in a dangerous world dominated by scarcity, our genes have been programmed us to be greedy, to want power, to dominate over others.
-Most of our goals will be shaped by genetic or by cultural inheritance.
-When a person likes what he does and is motivated to do it, focusing the mind becomes effortless even when the objective difficulties are great.
-Innate talents cannot develop into mature intelligence unless a person learns to control attention.
-Flow experiences to describe the sense of effortless action we feel in moments that stand out as the best in our lives. Moments in which what we feel, what we wish, and what we think are in harmony.
-When high challenges are matched with high skills, then the deep involvement that sets flow apart from ordinary life is likely to occur.
-Flow occurs when challenges and skills are high.
-When goals are clear, feedback relevant, and challenges and skills are in balance, attention becomes ordered and fully invested. Because of the total demand on psychic energy, a person in flow is completely focused. There is no space in consciousness for distracting thoughts, irrelevant feelings.
-When a person's entire being is stretched in the full functioning of body and mind, whatever one does becomes worth doing for its own sake.