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<\/p>\nSamadhi, enlightenment, flow, meraki: there are some words that periodically come back to us and which indicate a mental state of complete participation, optimal performance, full awareness… Each word has a different background, just think of Zen enlightenment, samadhi\u2026 yet we have all experienced perfect moments, where we felt in full control of what we were doing. For a long time now, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has investigated the scientific and theoretical foundations of this sensation and has defined it as flow.<\/p>\n
Take a read and tell me what you think! And, if you like, take a tour of our new website ilteamgiusto.it which will serve as a platform to prepare our new book based on an active engagement of our readers about teamworking!<\/p>\n
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In recent days, for different reasons, two books have come back to my mind, the first by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi<\/strong>, the well known Flow<\/strong>, and the second by Byung Chul Han<\/strong>, The Philosophy of Zen Buddhism<\/strong>. They are books written with very different intentions and almost twenty years apart from each other, but they have in common the fascination for that sense of complete participation and deep concentration that one calls flow<\/strong>, the other leads back to the samadhi<\/strong> of enlightenment, but which has been called in its various aspects Meraki, Ecstasy, Absolute Talent, etc.<\/p>\n Let’s retrace the path of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi together, who tries to give a scientific foundation<\/strong> to the ecstasy of doing well without a purpose<\/strong> (autotelic), just for the sake of doing it that way.<\/p>\n The scientist tells us that \u201cWe all experience moments in which, instead of being at the mercy of nameless forces, we feel that we are in control of our actions, that we are masters of our destiny<\/strong>. It is the moment of optimal experiences<\/strong> (we are in the flow<\/strong> precisely, n.d.s.). In the long run the optimal experiences add up to a feeling of mastery<\/strong> (or perhaps better awareness of participating in determining the content of life), which is the closest thing to happiness we can imagine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Flow is the state in which people are so involved in an activity that it seems that nothing else matters<\/strong>, furthermore, the experience in and of itself is so satisfying that they would be willing to do it even at a high cost just for the pleasure of doing.”<\/p>\n So, here are already some keywords: mastery<\/strong>, optimality<\/strong>, awareness<\/strong>, happiness<\/strong>, joy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The author explores, in a very important part of the book, the concept of consciousness and psychic energy<\/strong>, of the autotelic self. I recommend you to read them. I omit them here because I would like to focus on the more practical aspects of his analysis.<\/p>\n The optimal experience seems to be structured around eight main elements<\/strong>:<\/p>\n If you want, we can see it in another way, and Mihaly tells us: \u201cthe key element of the optimal experience is that it is an end in itself (autotelic)<\/strong>. Even if it was initially undertaken for other reasons, the activity in which we immerse ourselves fully becomes its own reward<\/strong>.\u201d Does it make sense? The term autotelic indicates an activity that is complete and that completes itself and for this reason it is faced, in depth, because just the doing of it becomes a reward in itself.<\/p>\n So, let’s try to see how to create the conditions to get to the Flow!<\/p>\n The continuous reference to the oriental way of seeing the world is a constant in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book. Byung Chul Han is no less, albeit with more philosophical aims and with the intention of comparing Western and Eastern traditions (we will return to this in a future article). I salute you, exaggerating, with a quote that is perhaps more than two thousand five hundred years old, from the book of the Tao te Ching<\/strong> by Lao Tzu<\/strong>: “This is the way to heaven: do your job and then whitdraw quietly<\/strong>.”.<\/p>\n In the next article we will see how Flow applies to the team!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Samadhi, enlightenment, flow, meraki: there are some words that periodically come back to us and which indicate a mental state of complete participation, optimal performance, full awareness… Each word has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-team-building-articles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"conscience,](\"https:\/\/www.ilteamgiusto.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Flow-meraki-sahmadi-1.jpg\")
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![\"autotelic](\"https:\/\/www.ilteamgiusto.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/esperienza-autotelica.jpg\")
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