Flow

A friend and I were talking on Skype yesterday. She was telling me how she had reached a point in life, where following her dream was more important than having a life filled with material things. She informed me of how she had reached a point where having what people generally perceived as success has become insignificant. She wants to feel passionate about what she does with her life now and she doesn't care if it means sacrificing other things...

It got me thinking about the theory of flow, developed by Csikszentmihalyi (a name I will never be able to pronounce). He defines flow as ‘the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.’

I've had those moments when I was so completely immersed in a creative activity, that I became totally out of touch with the passage of time. In those moments, there seems to be almost a spiritual experience taking place - like a connection to a higher source of energy. You cannot become tired and you never feel drained - on the contrary, the more you do it, the more energised you become.

Is this really what passion is? Is this perhaps why people want to do what they feel passionate about? The truth is that they want to have that feeling, that experience of completeness, where you fall so deeply into what you're doing that everything around you becomes insignificant.

It really is quite interesting to think about it. Perhaps this is the Universe's way of linking us to our purpose in this life...

DISCOVERY: I love the feeling of FLOW.