Boulogne-Billancourt (France), 10:30 p.m., spring 2017:

"So what do you do for a living?

- If this question aims to get to know me better, I prefer to talk about what I do in my free time , rather than during my work time… "

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After 16 episodes in French language, recorded all over France, I am pleased to share with you a new season, recorded in English language, in Taiwan.

Unlike France, the rhythm of work in Taiwan is so intense that people often struggle to have free time - plus, the culture doesn't really encourage people to follow their own path and practice autotelic activities.

Therefore, the testimonies are very different from those collected during the first season.

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I hope you will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed preparing them.

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Why "States of Flow"?

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Over thousand years ago, Aristotle came to the unsurprising conclusion that what a person wants above all is to be happy.

In 1961, the US psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi looked for a term that described the state of feeling happy. He called it "flow".

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His meaning of flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.

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After interviewing over a thousand people about what made them happy, he found that all the responses had five things in common.

Happiness, or "flow", occurs when we are :

- intensely focused

- on an activity of our own choosing,

- that is neither under-challenging, nor over-challenging,

- that as a clear objective,

- and that receives immediate feedback.

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References:

-"The Decision Book", written by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäooeler, and published in 2011 by Profil Books Ltd

-"Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention", Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

- Website Very Well Mind

- Interview of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi by Wired magazine

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