The Flow State

Day 202 / 365

From the days of Plato and Aristotle to today, one thing that’s remained constant about us is that we are all in a never-ending pursuit of happiness. And even with all the technological advances of the last few centuries, we haven’t made much progress with it.

Is being happy more about being comfortable? Because we sure have improved in that front. An average person today leads a more comfortable life than one maybe 500 years ago. But is he happier? I doubt it.

On the other hand, people may be in extreme pain but still feel euphoric. A person who just finished the marathon would not be comfortable physically, but he will surely be happy even if for a small time. You might have moments like this too, doing something that you love that provides you with unconditional happiness. It may be staying up all night working for your startup, or finishing a difficult trek. You are happy instead of the pain because when you do these things you are in the “zone”.

This “zone” is known as the flow state. And many have hopes that understanding it will be the end of our long pursuit of happiness.

This state is known as “Flow” because when you are in the zone, you lose track of everything other than the task that you are doing. You just seem to flow through the task. The reason behind this is that there is a limit to the number of things our brain can be attentive to at a given time. This is why when you become so involved with a task, your brain gives it total undivided attention. Not only will you ignore external stimuli like noises, but you would also forget about how your body feels, whether you are sleepy or hungry or tired.

So how do we reach this flow state? There are two qualities that an activity needs to have for it to be worthy of the flow state, it should be challenging, and it should require a high level of skill. So if you don’t have something like this already in your life, then pick up a challenge and start working towards developing the skills to meet it.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — The Bhagavad Gita