Late yesterday I said goodbye to my boyfriend once again as he returned to trains, grey brick and city smoke on his way back home. From the time I walked back, from the beginning of the today, I have done fairly little, but ponder on small, naggly things that wiggle around in front of my eyes. Little things, little worms of stress that are either going to be solved on Wednesday, or later in the year. Things. Life things.
To my side, I have "The Decision Book: Fifty models for strategic thinking." It was left in my room since yesterday, and just from a short trip in my bag, it has suffered a few marks on the cover, to the extent that I think I'll secretly buy a replacement.
The book uses a series of models with easy to interpret diagrams and systems.
Systems. Diagrams. I do like me some of those!
This is in order to help ask appropriate questions which in turn - aim to help you find your answer.
This shall be my weapon to increase my philosophy count. *Manic laughter here*
I should explain - I'm having a little competition with a friend of mine. We're trying to write as many profiles for countries and philosophers as we can. The biggest post count at the end of the year wins. You want to ask why we chose those topics? This may help.
So, turning to a random page, I find 'The Flow Model'. This is an indeed very simple model that generously mentions two philosophers. Firstly, two thousand years ago Aristole came to the conclusion that what a person wants above all is to be happy. In 1961, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote "While happiness itself is sought for its own sake, every other goal - health, beauty, money or power -- is valued only because we expect that it will make us happy." He used the term 'flow' as the name of the state of feeling happy, and after interviewing over a thousand people, he found that all responses had certain things in common. When we're in the flow we tend to be intensely focused on an activity, neither under-challenged or over-challenged, with a clear objective that receives immediate feedback.
Following?
This means that his vision of happiness contradicts the idea that relaxation directly follows happiness. Imagine two axis, the y being 'challenges' the other x axis being 'abilities'. There is a line of flow from the 0y, 0x, that rises to a straight positive gradient. If you were to think about the last three challenges you faced, decide the level of challenge it was, compared to the level of ability you had. If they match - you hit into the line of flow. If they don't - you're either above the line of flow - the challenge is too high, therefore you're over-challenged. Or you're too low on the graph and your ability is much higher than the challenge.
I find this an interesting concept.
Just from a quick google search I find he has a video on TED. I still don't have Internet at home, nor have I brought headphones with me today, so I can't judge the quality, yet TED videos are normally good.
Mihaly is also a positive psychologist. Positive psychology isn't just about treating mental illness, but studying positive human development. It is thought that focusing solely on disorder could result in limited understanding of a person's condition.
And finally, while he has lived most of his life in America and is essentially, American, he was born in Hungary.
Most likely this will amuse a certain psychologist I know.
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