Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes

Don't evaluate your life in terms of achievements, trivial or monumental, along the way... Instead, wake up and appreciate everything you encounter along your path. Enjoy the flowers that are there for your pleasure. Tune in to the sunrise, the little children, the laughter, the rain, and the birds. Drink it all in... there is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.

I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not.

Those who do not know how to see the precious things in life will never be happy.

There's no destination. There's no getting anywhere. There's just the going. The key to life is to make the going really fun. Because people that are like, “If I just get to this, then boom!” And then they get there and there's this dawning of an afterwards. Whereas I'm just always in the going. And it's not a frantic going like, “I gotta keep going or I'm gonna go nuts!” I can not do anything for weeks or months if I need to and just sit and read books or watch movies. I'm just as fine consuming and absorbing new art as I am trying to make it. But it's all in the going.

Your life is a series of moments in "now." The better you make your "now" the better your life.

But I don't think of the future, or the past, I feast on the moment. This is the secret of happiness, but only reached now in middle age.

Don't postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson.

The most complete and true happiness comes in moments when you feel right there, completely present, with no ideas about good and bad, right and wrong - just a sense of open heart and open mind.

Don't wait for everything to be perfect before you decide to enjoy your life.

When I get on the dance floor, my purpose in being on the dance floor is not to end up at another spot when the music stops. The purpose of the dance is to enjoy every step along the way.

I prayed very hard for this to happen and it happened. I don't even think about what I've achieved, I haven't focused on it and I wish I had, because I really want to enjoy it, and I don't know if I am enjoying it, because I am going through my life like a bulldozer. I still haven't marveled at it.

If you don't develop your skill at enjoying what you have, you won't be any happier when you get more.

You have to live life in the moment and get the most out of it.

If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man.

The peace that comes with surrendered action turns to a sense of aliveness when you actually enjoy what you are doing.

Nothing is permanently perfect. But there are perfect moments and the will to choose what will bring about more perfect moments.

You have nothing. One should never allow themselves to think that they have, one can just touch - to have is to lack appreciation, to touch is to want to touch again.

Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it.

I sometimes get caught up in the big goals...That aren't really the ultimate goal, which is to be happy for what you have.

If you spend your life thinking, "I wonder if today is when it ends," you're going to miss out on everything wonderful.

Fertility says, "Can you relax and just let things happen?" I ask, does she mean, like disasters, like pain, like misery? Can I just let all that happen? "And Joy," she says, "and Serenity, and Happiness, and Contentment." She says all the wings of the Columbia Memorial Mausoleum. "You don't have to control everything," she says. "You can't control everything." But you can be ready for disaster. A sign goes by saying, Buckle Up. "If you worry about disaster all of the time, that's what you are going to get," Fertility says.

You're supposed to take a second if life is going well, to enjoy it and not just move on with the rest of your day worrying about the next thing. And it's a really trite point in some ways. But it's bizarre how little I had done it at various points in my life.

My philosophy is the balance of remembering the past but not living in it, to know where you are in the moment, to project a little in the future and be ready to change. It's how you experience the grace to enjoy the smell of the pavement after a rain - the little things in life to make you satisfied. I never settle for anything that doesn't give me a modicum of pleasure if not total joy and satisfaction. It's allowed, that's what we're supposed to feel. How can we, from an empty cup, offer a stranger a drink of water? You have to fill that cup to the brim!

Many people think that if they were only in some other place, or had some other job, they would be happy. Well, that is doubtful. So get as much happiness out of what you are doing as you can and don't put off being happy until some future date.

Being engaged with life. One has to develop a poet's eye for perfect moments, moments that most people pass by.