Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (ISBN: 0465024114 )

1) He divides our waking time into basically productive work, maintenance activities, leisure activities and our time in the social sphere as with productive peers, family, or self.

2) Emotions are subjective, yet the experience of emotions create our sense of reality.

3) Flow = Highly positive emotions such as being happy, alertness, active, strong, sociable, cheerful, focused, and conscious.

When we are using all of our talents, fully engaged, with immediate and revelent feedback we are in a state of flow.

Helpful hint: "Engineer your daily life around getting the most rewarding experiences from it. Not those experiences of flow and satisfaction in one's life. Learn to manage the daily rhythms of life. He relays the problems of being alone and discusses how being with others naturally structure and sets goals for us. He suggests that it is very worthwhile to structure our being with others in enjoyable relaxed times.

Leisure can be dangerous for us because we lack the goals and structure of an outside influence. Flow producing activites require "activation time and energy".

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My suggestion if you are lost with this stuff is to take a free online Myers Briggs test to see how you score, and then search for job recommendations for ENTP or whatever you happen to be. You will find an indication of what you should be doing in terms of achieving Flow.

I think people should have more time between college and the real world to figure out what it is they do best so that job satisfaction and personal happiness and productivity will go up. Maybe people wouldn't be so unhappy with their jobs later in life!