Flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote a marvelous book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. In it, he describes the ease and flow of our spirits when we have achieved an optimal level of competence in doing our lives and our jobs. With flow comes the success of doing a job well, but also the intense focus and satisfaction of doing it. Not accomplishing it as much as being it. There are lots of sports clichés for this feeling: in the zone, in the moment, etc.

How do you know you’ve hit your stride and are “flowing”? You lose track of time. You’re not wishing for 5:00, or lunchtime, or any particular time. You are engaged in something, you notice the time idly, and a little bit later, you look up and you’re amazed that two or three hours have passed.

Even though today began with sleep deprivation (I have a dog with a twitchy colon), we hit the ground with both feet and cheerfully met the day. I might question my presence here in this suburb, in Texas (much changed since the wild ways I used to know and love here), but the ease of this day is undeniable. Amid food decisions, laundry demands, meetings, phone calls, and other stuff, evening came as a surprise, and it was bedtime all too soon.

My thought tonight as I remembered this is the last day of Holidailies, and that even after folding laundry, changing the sheets on my bed, taking a bath, dealing with the dogs one last time… I still need to write something. And the thought that immediately came to mind was “there is always time to write.”

And so there is. What Holidailies (and NaNoWriMo in November) have taught me is that I always can put a few thoughts into words, and make it so that someone somewhere will want to read it, even if it’s just me. (That model will have to be hundreds and thousands of people wanting to read it, if I ever want to be published, but not to worry about that tonight.)

With my creative spirit fueled by a new regime of whole foods (less fat and more protein), with new yoga classes to discover, a new workout and renewed promises of regular walks with Miss Queen Bean aka Lucy of the twitchy colon, I can always find time to write. It’s the touchstone for my flow. Not exactly an epiphany, but maybe an epiph. I’ll take it.

I used to have this saying on my fridge, credited to someone I now forget who — which reads: I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live. How very very true.

Thanks for reading the Holidailies, and I hope you’ll stick around and add me to your reader as I continue to explore my own creativity, and prepare materials for a class/tutorial/webinar (ha ha! like that one, Betty?).

balance, creativity, crunchy grad school stuff, holidays, time management, writing holidailies