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Quotes, again. This time, from 'Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Some things in this book strike me as way off base and just plain wrong. But other parts I found interesting, or at least thought-provoking, and these are those parts.

Where things are not in quotes, they are paraphrased. It is obvious that in several areas, his hypotheses are overly simplified and could be used for victim-blaming; he does not address that weakness of the theory in this book, his focus is more on his theories of how one can improve the experience (not the content) of one's own life.
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The primacy of attention, immersion, absorption

"Attention determines what will and will not appear in consciousness."
"The shape and content of life depend on how attention has been used."
"Attention can be invested in innumerable ways, ways that can make life either rich or miserable."
"Attention shapes the self, and is in turn shaped by it."

The meaning of one's life will feel most full if it is: authentic, discovered, and from the self (as opposed to from outside the self). Consider what is holding one back, and consider what is the altruistic generalized solution for that. Then, action & building skills, in iterations, with realistic expectations that are in balance.

The phenomenology of enjoyment has eight major components:
1. When you confront a task you have a chance of completing
2. When you are able to concentrate on what you are doing.
3. When the task has clear goals
4. When it provides immediate feedback
5. When one is involved deeply yet effortlessly, absorbed in the activity and removed from awareness of the worries and frustrations of everyday life
6. When you have sense of control over your actions
7. When self-consciousness fades away and when the sense of self emerges stronger after the experience is over.
8. When the sense of duration of time is altered

The family context that seems to lead to someone becoming happier, more satisfied, and stronger in life:
1. Clarity - unambiguous expectations, goals, and feedback
2. Centering - concern for them in the present, as they are now, rather than preoccupation with future possibilities or "potential"
3. Choice - a variety of possibilities are available, as long as they face the consequences
4. Commitment - an atmosphere of sufficient trust and comfort that allows unselfconscious involvement in interests
5. Challenge - expanding opportunities

To transform a task to produce flow:
1. Set an overall goal, and as many subgoals as are realistically feasible
2. Find ways of measuring progress in terms of the goals chosen
3. Keep concentrating on it, and keep making finer & finer distinctions in the challenges
4. Continue expanding skills whenever it's too challenging
5. Keep raising the stakes whenever it becomes boring

Challenge| Anxiety
                |             ////
                |        ////
                |   ////          Boredom
                --------------------
                              Skill
     where the diagonal line is flow, above the line is challenge, below the line is boredom.

"When we fell that we are investing attention in a task against our will, it is as if our psychic energy is being wasted. Instead of helping us to reach our own goals, it is called upon to make someone else's come true."

"These ways that people find to hurt or frighten themselves do not require a great deal of skill, but they do help one to achieve the sensation of direct experience. Even pain is better than the chaos that seeps into an unfocused mind. Hurting oneself, whether physically or emotionally, ensures that attention can be focused on something that, although painful, is at least controllable -- since we are the ones causing it." (he relates this to numbing activities like tv, too.)

"In each person's life, the chances of only good things happening are extremely slim. The likelihood that our desires will be always fulfilled is so minute as to be negligible. Sooner or later everyone will have to confront events that contradict his goals: disappointments, sever illness, financial reversal, and eventually the inevitability of one's death. Each even of this kind is negative feedback that produces disorder in the mind. Each threatens the self and impairs its functioning...  (in some cases, the self) retreats behind massive defenses and vegetates in a state of continuous suspicion...." "It is for this reason that courage, resilience, perseverance, mature defense, or transformational coping, are so essential."  "Partly this ability to control consciousness) is a product of the mere passage of time: having been disappointed before, and having survived the disappointment (...)" "Why are some people weakened by stress, while others gain strength from it? ... Those who know how to transform a hopeless situation into a new flow activity that can be controlled will be able to enjoy themselves, and emerge stronger from the ordeal. There are three main steps that seem to be involved in such transformations:
1. Unselfconscious self-assurance
2. Focusing attention in the world
3. The discovery of new solutions

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Same author, different book, which really reads like a re-write of the previous book. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. This author has some good points and, again, it's totally overshadowed by some ugly and false gender essentialism & rigid gender role expectations. Not to mention the most dismal view of introversion I've ever seen. It's amusing, actually; in the previous book, he exhorts others not to pathologize things that bring joy, but then he tends to describe introversion as a an abnormality, or, certainly nothing anyone could desire, lol. But, as before, gleaning the bits of good from the rest.

"(Study sample subgroup) might have lower self-esteem not because they are accomplishing less, but because they expect more from themselves than they possibly deliver."

"When idleness is forced on someone without a handsome income, it just produces a severe drop in self-esteem, and general listlessness."

"Without goals and without others to ineract with, most people begin to lose motivation and concentration. The mind begins to wander, and more often than not it will focus on unresolvable problems that cause anxiety."
"But when they are alone with nothing to do, their minds begin to be occupied by depressing thoughts, and their consciousness becomes entropic." ... "(W)hen we are alone with nothing to do there is no reason to concentrate,and what happens then is that the mind begins to unravel,and soon finds something to worry about."

Actual flow activities, that you will enjoy, often require an upfront activation energy, before getting to the flow, and they also have a chance of creating anxiety than purely passive leisure, but the level of anxiety invested ultimately ends up worth it, if you can get past the activation energy requirement.

"How to avoid the danger of polarizing life into work that is meaningless because it us unfree, and leisure that is meaningless because it has no purpose?" To use leisure creatively, to find flow, to explore beauty and knowledge. And if you have too much psychic entropy (delusions, irrational fears, etc.), then add more structure. Try to find joie de vivre, and do what you like to do. Pay genuine attention, devote attention to it. At each moment. Seek actions where 'there is no room in your awareness for conflicts or contradictions; you know that a distracting thought or emotion might get you buried facedown in the snow. And who wants to get distracted? The run is so perfect that all you want is for it to last forever, to immerseyourself completely in the experience." ... when "what we feel, what we wish, and what we think are in harmony."

Take ownership of your actions. Act deliberately, and have it be reaching a goal you have chosen. (Hey, that's very Tiffany Aching!)