Читать книгу Making Happy People: The nature of happiness and its origins in childhood - Paul Martin - Страница 36

A fairly regular occurrence for most happy people is a particular state of optimal experience which is sometimes referred to as flow.³

Flow occurs when you are utterly absorbed in an activity. That activity might be something mundane like reading a book or socialising, or it might be more demanding, like playing a musical instrument or climbing a mountain. Whatever the activity is, you have chosen to perform it for its own sake and have a clear sense of what you are trying to do; you are also completely focused on the task in hand and nothing else seems to matter. (In this way, flow is an excellent antidote to self-absorption.) Your attention is firmly rooted in the present, rather than flitting anxiously between the past and future as often happens in normal experience. In addition, you might notice a change in your perception of time, which can feel either as though it has speeded up or slowed down. The sensation of flow can be intensely rewarding, but it may not feel especially pleasurable. Someone in flow will probably not be whooping with joy: the gratification usually comes later, when looking back on the experience.

Flow requires you to be fully engaged in a task that is sufficiently challenging to stretch your skills, but not so difficult that it becomes stressful. Someone in flow can feel intensely alive, as though they were meant to be doing what they are doing. Think of James Bond performing some feat of derring-do and saving the world (again). Bond feels more than mere physical pleasure – indeed, he might feel quite the reverse if the villains temporarily have the upper hand. Rather, he feels at one with himself and fulfilled. In contrast, an essentially passive pastime like watching TV is unlikely to produce flow because it makes so little demand on the viewer.