Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi Explains Why the Source of Happiness Lies in Creativity and Flow, Not Money

Speak­ing at the TED Con­fer­ence, famed psy­chol­o­gist Mihaly Czik­szent­mi­ha­lyi asks what’s the source of hap­pi­ness? And his answer comes down to this: Beyond a cer­tain point (and it’s not very far), mon­ey does­n’t affect hap­pi­ness too much. Rather, as his research shows, we tend to be most hap­py when we get immersed, almost lost in, being cre­ative and per­form­ing at our best. It’s an ecsta­t­ic state that he calls “flow.” The video runs about 19 min­utes, and is well worth your time. Some book titles worth check­ing out include: Flow: The Psy­chol­o­gy of Opti­mal Expe­ri­ence or Find­ing Flow: The Psy­chol­o­gy of Engage­ment with Every­day Life.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Cleese, Mon­ty Python Icon, on How to Be Cre­ative

Mal­colm McLaren: The Quest for Authen­tic Cre­ativ­i­ty

Amy Tan: The Sources of Cre­ativ­i­ty


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Comments (6)
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  • Jaime says:

    I think you are only tru­ly hap­py when you are fol­low­ing Jeho­vah God.

  • John Pearce says:

    As for Jeho­va God — I think it is much more (maybe but not nec­es­sair­i­ly also) about self-real­i­sa­tion, action to improve your­self and most impor­tant­ly cre­ativ­i­ty in help­ing us all devel­op joy in our inter­de­pen­dence — the true flow?

  • rocaru says:

    We are not sep­a­rate from god (aka THE CREATOR). Cre­ativ­i­ty is one of those very human traits that bring us clos­er togeth­er with “God” and since the sep­a­ra­tion between god and our self is illu­so­ry, to each oth­er.

  • elisabeth says:

    thank you! very inter­est­ing and help­ful. I think *Flow* must extend out to the com­mu­ni­ty and get peo­ples towns states coun­tries flow­ing! I think we should all have this grand priv­elege to FLOW!

  • […] Cre­ativ­i­ty, Flow and the Source of Hap­pi­ness Share: […]

  • Karen says:

    I think find­ing a job that oays mon­ey, which involves skills that result in flow might be the epit­o­me of happiness…If only one might find such employ­ment,

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