Finding Flow By Jim Rohn Analysis

Jim Rohn was an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker who said, “Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.” Happiness is not the outcome from going to one joy to the next according to research; achieving happiness typically involves times of considerable discomfort. Money is important to happiness, but it is not everything. Money buys freedom from worry about the basics in life—housing, food, clothing. What impacts how happy you are is your genetic makeup, life circumstances, achievements, marital status, social relationships, etc. Happiness is controversial right now because everyone has their own definition of what happiness really is. Philosophers, theologians, …show more content…
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in the “Finding Flow” section he says, “Most of the welders who worked there hated their jobs, and were constantly watching the clock in anticipation of quitting time. As soon as they were out of the factory they hurried to the neighborhood saloons, or took a drive across the state line for more likely action. Except for one of them. The exception was Joe, a barely literate man in his early sixties, who had trained himself to understand and to fix every piece of equipment in the factory, from cranes to computer monitors. He loved to take on machinery that didn’t work, figure out what was wrong with it, and set it right again. At home, he and his wife built a large rock garden on two empty lots next to their house, and in it he built misty fountains that made rainbows- even at night. The hundred or so welders who worked at the same plant respected Joe, even though they couldn’t quite make him out. They asked his help whenever there was any problem. Many claimed that without Joe the factory might just as well close.” Joe was so into and liked machinery that he and his wife built a large rock garden on two empty lots next to their house, and in it he built misty fountains that made rainbows and would help others at work that needed it. Joe found joy in something that he liked to do that he helps others. In the “Finding Flow” section, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi …show more content…
“This is as close to a description of happiness as I can imagine. Rousseau is describing the experience of floating in a little rowing boat on the Lake of Bienne close to Neuchatel in his native Switzerland. He particularly loved visiting the IIe Saint Pierre, where he used to enjoy going for exploratory walks when the weather was fine and he could indulge in the great passion of his last years: botany. He would walk with a copy of Linnaeus under his arm, happily identifying plants in areas of the deserted island that he had divided for this purpose into small squares. On the way to the island, he would pull in the oars and just let the boat drift where it wished for hours at a time. Rousseau would lie down in the boat and plunge into a deep reverie. How does one describe the experience of reverie: one is aware, but half asleep, thinking, but not [a]… calculative or ordered way, simply letting thoughts happen, as they will,” according to Simon Critchley in the section, “Happy Like God”. Simply living in the now can help people find happiness. Happiness is more affected by how often people drifted off, and where they went in their imagination, than by the activity they were doing at the time. Simon Critchley points out, in his section, that “Happiness is not quantitative or measurable and it is not the object of any science, old or new. It cannot be gleaned from empirical surveys or programmed into individuals through a combination of