Flow

What makes people happy?  That is the subject of Jonathan Haidt's book, The Happiness Hypothesis.

In this book, he provides a simple formula for happiness. 

        H = S + C + V

where     H = happiness
              S = one's 'set-point'  (different people have varying tendencies towards optimism)
              C = conditions of one's life
              V = voluntary actions

What is in our control are our voluntary actions, and to a lesser extent, the conditions of our lives.

What is it about our voluntary actions that can contribute positively to our happiness?   Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "cheeks sent me high") came up with the concept of "flow" to describe the state of near euphoria reported by subjects of his research.  Here are some of the characteristics he found of "flow":

• total immersion in a task
• a sense of timelessness
• taking on a challenge one believes is within one's grasp
• a sense of control
• feedback on progress
• finite dimension of the task

"Flow" is a self-reported optimal state.  It has been reported by assembly-line workers, musicians, athletes, students and even office workers!  One might say that one becomes immersed in one's task to the point of self-transcendence.