Quotes by Csíkszentmihályi Mihály

"

Power over consciousness cannot be institutionalized.

"

The ability to persevere in the face of obstacles is the quality that people most admire in others, and rightly so: it is probably the most important character trait that will not only help you achieve success, but also enjoy life.

"

Memories of the past contribute greatly to making our lives better. They free us from the tyranny of the present and allow our consciousness to revisit the good old days. We can select and preserve in our memory events that are particularly pleasant and meaningful to us, and we can "create" a past with the help of souvenirs that will help us thrive in the future.

"

Like all truly important things, personal relationships can make us very happy when they work well and very unhappy when they don't. People represent the most flexible and variable part of our environment. The same person can make our mornings wonderful and our evenings horrible. Because we are so dependent on the love and appreciation of others, we are sensitive to how they treat us.

"

Unless you learn to enjoy being alone, most of your life will be spent desperately trying to avoid your discomfort.

"

There are few things as enjoyable as freely sharing our most secret desires and thoughts with someone else. This may seem cliché, but it actually requires a lot of attention, openness and sensitivity. In practice, such a degree of psychic effort devoted to friendship is regrettably rare. There are few who devote the necessary time or energy to it.

"

A joyful life is always a unique creation and cannot be achieved based on a recipe.

"

If you surround yourself with "friends" who only reinforce your extroverted personality, who never ask about your dreams and desires, who never encourage you to try new paths, you're missing out on the opportunities that friendship can provide. A real friend is someone we can fool around with from time to time, who doesn't expect us to always bring the paper form; someone who helps us in self-actualization and is therefore willing to share the risk that is present in all complex activities.

"

In reality, the quality of life does not directly depend on what we have or what others think of us. If anything has a role in this at all, then how we feel and what we think about what happens to us. To make our lives better, we have to make our experiences better.

"

The most beautiful experiences of our life do not come to us in a passive, receptive, relaxed state - although such experiences can also be enjoyable if we have worked hard for them. The most beautiful moments usually occur when someone pushes their physical or mental performance to the extreme with a strained will to accomplish some difficult but important task. So the perfect experience is something that doesn't just happen to us, but rather something that we create on purpose.

"

Our relationship with ourselves and how much beauty we find in life ultimately depends on how our minds filter and interpret our daily experiences. Our happiness comes from our inner harmony, not from our ability to bring the mighty forces of the universe under our control.

"

Happiness is not something that just happens to us, nor is it related to luck or chance. It cannot be bought with money, it cannot be acquired with power. It does not depend on external events, but rather on how we interpret them ourselves. Happiness is actually a state that you have to prepare for and that everyone has to nurture and protect themselves.

"

While we seek happiness for its own sake, all our other goals - be it health, beauty, money or power - are only important because we assume they will make us happy.

"

Everyone has the ability to influence their own reality.

"

Everyone is part of a family or a friendship to the extent that they invest psychic energy in common goals.

"

Those who want to improve other people's lives without learning how to control their own lives usually only make things worse.

"

Those we love have the power to hurt us the most.

"

To live means to live life in actions, feelings, and thoughts. This experience takes place in time, so time is ultimately our scarcest resource. (...) That is why one of the most important decisions we make is what we devote our time to.

"

Children should be taught to enjoy learning for its own sake, not just to get good grades. Children who enjoy overcoming challenges will seek out challenging situations in their adult lives. They are more likely to seize new opportunities, seek new methods, work on tasks that do not have clear solutions, and encourage others to work on difficult problems.

"

It is the responsibility of adults to ensure that the requirements placed on adolescents have a clearly defined purpose. In addition to providing support to teenagers, they should give them the freedom to pursue their own goals.

"

Partial solutions have no place in the pursuit of happiness.

"

In order to overcome the pain of life, one must be honest with oneself, admitting one's faults and weaknesses. Like a surgeon, he must be willing to cut deep into the festering wounds of the soul. Otherwise, too much of your energy will be consumed by self-mutilation due to denial or disappointments.

"

The family falls apart when its members leave it. There is no external force, not even death, that can do this by itself.

"

We can only get something out of a conversation if we gain new knowledge or feelings. However, this requires focus of attention from both participants in the conversation, that is, an investment of mental energy, which we are not very willing to do. However, the state of flow achieved in a REAL conversation is one of the most exciting experiences in life.

"

The quality of our life will be determined by what activities we spend the seventy-odd years imposed on us and what happens in our consciousness.

"

Achieving the goals does not mean they disappear into thin air.

"

Not everyone wins the genetic lottery like the Olympians, but everyone is capable of setting clear goals and working hard to achieve them.

"

The love of the sport that comes from within is twice as important as improving our skills.

"

We define ourselves based on the feedback of those around us: if everyone sees us as beautiful, we see ourselves as beautiful.

"

In many cases, a person's harshest critic is himself.

"

What is the right amount of challenge today may be too much or too little tomorrow or a week from now, depending on our mood, health and physical fitness. Fluctuation in our abilities is a normal phenomenon, and abilities can change even while running, as we feel great or very bad.

"

Many people think that they are happier when they rest or relax. In comparison, they are more likely to report that they experience the greatest happiness when they are immersed in an activity or fully committed to tackling a challenge.

"

Money in itself is not an exciting thing: a piece of paper or a piece of metal that has a value determined by social consensus. Everything that we can get through pieces of paper and pieces of metal (material possessions, power, a peaceful life) makes people believe that money can buy happiness, even though they keep saying how untrue it is.

"

Most of the time, school is unable to teach you how exciting, how enchantingly beautiful science or mathematics can be; they teach rigid literature or history, ignoring the thrill of discovery.

"

There is no perfect way to prevent injuries. If there were, a lot of physiotherapists would suddenly be out of work.

"

Humans are essentially competitive creatures, and competition provides an opportunity to bring out the best in ourselves. Fighting against yourself is a powerful motivating force, but competing with others is an even stronger stimulus.

"

Man is a thinking being, and his thoughts take the form of speech. Everyone has an inner narrator who constantly comments: it can do this in a positive, uplifting way, but it can also be depressing and pessimistic.

"

If you do nothing else but talk to them about your work, thoughts, daily events, and treat your children like young adults, you have already helped them to become thinking people.

"

Children can naturally get into a state of flow. They learn quickly because they find learning exciting. A baby does not need to be paid to learn to talk or walk, it has a natural urge to perfect its knowledge. However, when we lock them in school where they have to sit and listen, it is not natural for them. It's all a misunderstanding of the adult world about how we learn.

"

Objects undoubtedly prove the power of their owner. The Self can expand its boundaries indefinitely if it is apparently in possession of ever-increasing wealth. But the more a personality depends on external objects, the more vulnerable it becomes.

"

In winter, when it snows, looking out the window, you can see huge, uniform snowflakes. However, if we look at them under a magnifying glass, we find that they are not the same, each of them has a different shape, no two of them are exactly alike. It's the same with people.

"

Nowadays, it is very fashionable to complain about the lack of time. Mostly, however, this is just an excuse so that we don't have to take our lives into our own hands.

"

No matter what we find joy in, family runs, chess, or even solitary activities like reading or playing music, it's important to make time for enjoyable moments. If we spend money on memorable experiences instead of things, we will experience a much deeper joy - this joy is the blissful pleasure that can have a long-lasting effect on our satisfaction with life.

"

Flow can never be the goal - it can only be a result.

"

The "not my day" phenomenon happens to all runners, even the biggest ones. Life is a master of fun in the sense that it pulls through our calculations.

"

The only person who is guaranteed to be with us day and night is ourselves. This can lead to self-flagellation and negative feelings. Let's take note if we have negative thoughts about ourselves, but don't say them out loud. Rather, we try to turn them into positive thoughts.

"

Paradoxically, we learn how to be more than what we were before when we act freely, for the sake of acting, and not for higher purposes.