Going With...

In all the happiness literature I've been digging into, every one so far has talked about "flow." Flow, for the uninitiated, is when you're enjoying or are so into what you're doing that you lose track of time. It's when you are "in the zone".

Well, the inventor of the concept of flow, or the guy who first really identified and studied it and made a name for himself, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is name-dropped left, right and center in the happiness literature.

And apparently, even though we claim to want more time to relax and do leisurish things, we are actually far more likely to attain a state of flow at work.

This I can attest to. Today, for brief moments, I was in my flow zone (that doesn't sound right). I had attained flow? No, that doesn't sound right, either. Damn.

Anyway, I was cruising along, teaching math I barely knew to energetic tweens, calling on students left and right, all of whose names I knew. It was fabulous.

I am exhausted from subbing, but am loving getting to get back into that zone on a more regular basis. Parenting is vital and has enormous rewards, but there isn't so much flow in cooking for children or doing four loads of laundry a day.

Or MAYBE....there is.

Can we find flow in the drudgery of everyday life? Ariel Gore's book says that if we play music along with it, there's a better chance of a flow experience. But still, the bottom line appears to be: you want flow? Go to work.

I attain the state of flow (no, that sounds so formal) when I teach, write, and run.

So working is a good thing.

Imagine that.