Week 5

1) Briefly update the group on the pursuit of your new occupation.  What's new?

This week I learned to play the song "Someone to Lava Me" from Pixar's short movie "Lava."  

2) After re-examining the characteristics of flow (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, p. 90), discuss whether you have experienced this state.  If so, what activities have brought it about, and how often has it occurred?

Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi described being in flow with the folllowing characteristics:

- Intense and focused concentration on what one is doing in the present moment

- Merging of action and awareness

- Loss of reflective self-consciousness

- A sense that one can control one's actions; that is, a sense that one can in principle deal with the situation because one knows how to respond to whatever happens next

- Distortion of temporal experience (typically, a sense that time passed faster than normal)

- Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, such that often the end goal is just an excuse for the process.

I experience flow in a variety of activities.  I've experienced flow through sports, education, motorcycling, playing the piano, work, etc.  One activity that puts me in a state of flow is math homework. Now you are probably thinking that I am crazy.  I probably am, but I was/am the student who would rather to 10 hours of math homework than write a paper or read a book for a class. Although I didnt' take many math classes in college, I would get estatic anytime we had math related homework in Chemistry, Physics, or Biomechanics.  I loved solving the problems and working through the process to get the right answer.  I felt very much in control and had confidence in being able to figure out the problem, time would pass by and I wouldn't even mind, and I was excited during the working of the problem and even more satisfied when I had found the right answer. 

Another activity that regularly allows me to experience flow is playing volleyball.  The only requirement here is that since I did play volleyball through high school I am used to playing at a higher level.  So in order to experience flow while playing volleyball, the skill level of those I am playing with needs to be around a varsity level in order for there to be a right challenge for my skills.  When I play with a group who is not very skilled or competitive, I find myself in the boredome or apathy category in the flow diagram and do not find as much enjoyment from the activity.  

3) Analyze your new occupation in regard to its current level of challenge for you and your current skill.  Does the occupation appear to have the potential to create a flow experience for you?  What would have to change in order for this to occur?

- I have been playing the piano since I was six years old.  With a background in how to read and play music, changing from one musical instrument to another is not very difficult.  So it didn't take long to pick up the ukuele and understand the chords and rthyms.  Currently I have been playing more beginner level songs on the ukulele, and would say that my skills are above the challenge and so I am in a state of relaxation when I play.  

- In the Resilience book it says "Flow is a state of mind that occurs when our thoughts are focused on the activity at hand and we want to pursue whatever we are doing for its own sake" (pp. 60-61).  With this description of flow I would say that I experience brief moments of flow as I practice, but it isn't like with my math homework where I would stay in flow throughout the entire assignment. I think the best way for me to experience more flow while playing the ukulele would be to switch from the calculative thinking of "I'm playing for an hour each week for an assignment and to write a blog" to more meditative thinking where playing the ukulele becomes more meaningful and I see the picture that goes beyond an assignment for class. 

4) Analyze your personal characteristics and preferences in regard to the information about autotelic personalities (see pp. 93, 95, and 97-99).  How closely do you fit that personality type?  How might your personality affect the attractiveness of the flow experience as a motivator to choose particular occupations in your life?

Some of the characteristics of a person with an autotelic personality include: one who has a general curiosity and interest in life, persistance, is motivated by intrinsic rewards, has well-defined future goals, and tends to enjoy life or "generally does things for their own sake, rather than in order to achieve some later external goal."  I would not classify myself as a full on, 100% autotelic personality.  I have been told countless times to "take time to stop and smell the roses"  because I find myself so focused on the future that I sometimes forget to enjoy each day.  I do prefer tasks that challenge my skills and where I learn and grow from the situation rather than apathy situations. Liking the growth that comes from a challenge, my personality has motivated me to pursue occupations in my life that would create the opportunity to exeperience flow.