Finding true happiness in life with flow - But what’s flow?!

Walking into an art gallery brings me to a place of respect. Where souls are bore on canvass to the admiration and critique of its audience. I would say the owners of these pieces are the bravest individuals on the face of the earth because they allow people penetrate their sacred place - their soul. I spend hours on a painting, mesmerized by the piece and what the artist was gunning for. You can relate it to that of euphoria. How people fall so deep in the moment in an Opera. How the performers take the audience on a journey with their voices and live them teary eyed and in awe of a performance.

That is how I am with paintings. I remember writing a love triangle on a painting I was drawn by. It was a man in a hat all in black who had his back to the audience but his face tilted to the side, saying good bye. For the hours I spent drawn to that piece I felt I knew him and it was me he had a grudge with. But why?!

If you ask anyone what brings happiness, the likely answers are money, comfort, health and power. The expectation that these things bring happiness in itself is great but they are but for the moment. Humans since the beginning of life are insatiable. There is always the drive and hunger for more… and more… and more… which is good for it shows how human we are. I don’t have a house YET but I want five.

Unless we learn how to moderate the insatiable demands we have built, unless we learn how to enjoy the moments as it goes by instead of always wishing for more, we are going to be disillusioned and disappointed at the end of life. Therefore the kind of happiness referred to in this piece is that NOT from material things or pleasure but the type that comes from the everyday activities we do from relishing and enjoying every moment; to our interaction with the environment, people around us, happiness from the ongoing use of our skills, happiness derived from living and not from getting something in the future. We will never be truly happy - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

In his book “FLOW: LIVING AT THE PEAK OF YOUR ABILITIES” Mihaly describes flow as a spectacular feeling of complete involvement with what you are doing that comes when you are paying attention to a goal or when you are reading the feedback you get from the goal. A state when one is absorbed in an activity so that your energy is focused and concentrated and time seems to fly by reaching a state of optimal experience.

The 2016 movie The Meddler is a romantic drama of a woman who moves to a different city to be with her daughter after the demise of her husband. Her daughter on the other hand is utterly suffocated by the presence of her mother who she feels would be better off if she had a hobby or something more distracting. Marnie, the protagonist of the movie, finds flow in her daily life by positively impacting the lives of the people in her environment by being needed and happily available in the lives of these individuals. In the process she eventually finds love and a happier relationship with her daughter.

Flow meets us and can be achieved at a point where we feel we have hit a brick wall. The job so repetitive has become a bore or the family who doesn’t get us. The idea is finding a balance and making juice from drab. It’s about enjoying the process to a goal when you are happy doing something. Happiness is from the doing and not the goal.

If you have watched the 2016 movie Me Before You, I’m sure it left you with the dagger in the heart feeling. It’s a love story about Lou played by the Game of Thrones Queen of dragons Emilia, who became a caregiver to quadriplegic young man Will who suffered Paralysis two years back from a Skiing accident. The movie caused a lot of outrage from people suffering paralysis saying that they choose life and not Will’s escape. Let’s not get distracted but focus on the movie now…

I believe Will reached a peak of Flow being with fun bubbly Lou. He admitted that he was his happiest being with her for she made him feel the truest form of love, friendship, need and want. He was alive with her but in my opinion due to his stubborn, hard headed; proud self and the writer’s desire to make us question love the more. He chose death than live as a prisoner in his own body.

What happens when we reach a devastating moment in our life? Do we recline to our shells and become depressed or do we live? Mihaly encourages flow in not just our passions, desires, hobbies and wants but in every aspect of life, both the good and the bad. So that when we reach a place we feel boxed we can start a spark and enjoy the view.

What do you think my Flow is?