Flow, the secret to happiness

“What makes a life worth living?” In this 2008 TED talk, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, best known as the architect of the notion of flow, starts from that question.

Noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks at people who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of flow. Flow is the state of complete absorption in an activity, and the concept has become a common reference point in game design, motivational design and user experience. Designers often draw on it when matching the level of challenge to a person’s skill, a balance the Appropriate Challenge pattern describes.