Really Going with the Flow

“Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as a human state of optimal functioning, a dynamic balance of challenge and skill,” wrote Sky Nelson-Isaacs. “In the proper activities and under the proper conditions, we become one with our lives, enacting ‘a complete focusing of attention on the task at hand — thus leaving no room in the mind for irrelevant information.’ When we are in a state like this, thinking and feeling become integrated, with neither controlling the other.”