why can't i be happy
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http://ShaneFarmer Ministry.com Are you wondering how to become happy in life? Do you think money and happiness go hand in hand or is it something else? Psychologist, Csikszentmihalyi studied the concept of -flow and they key to happiness. You might be surprised about what he found.TRANSCRIPT
is cause I was so overchallenging myself. It was such a struggle to overcome and to overcome mentally and overcome physically and all the rest the all the rest of the other one time out of ten was climbing something so easy... it was.. well you know... it was what it was... a walk in the park But this one day was different. I started working my way up this climb. And I noticed that unlike the normal attempt at climbing, I found myself just kind of almost moving effortlessly. Placing the gear, clipping the rope, and making my way up. And I don't know how else to describe this, At some point, it felt like all of time had stood still. Like I could have been doing this for hours, it just felt like a single moment In fact, I forgot about everything that was happening in the world except this one single activity. I was completely focused, and it was an incredible experience later I found out that that is called flow. And according CSIKSZENTIMIHALYI, extreme adventuresports are one of the primary placeswhere it's easy to observe flow. 'Cause that is where people are pushing their mind, and their body to the limits of human capacity. But that's not the only place he found flow. In fact, he found floating in some composers. But not just any composers. Highly trained, highly skilled composers, would tell him about moments in their life where they sat down to create something new is almost like their hands were just moving effortlessly across the keyboard. They experienced almost an out of body experience as they watched themselves creating something new... One of the best experiences they ever had in their lives. He also found this in ice skaters who would reflect on certain moments else about listening a skier who defy concern moments when they were gliding across the ice, having an almost translike, utopic experience... so much happiness, so much peace... in this one particular moment. And he would find this in CEOs and snowboarders in everything in between that when someone was highly gifted and highly skilled in some particular area,
and they were able to engage in that activity at a high level. Not to where it was too challenging, If it was too challenging, they would be scared If it was under challenging, they would get bored, or apathetic. But when challenge met skill level they encountered what the psychologist CSIKSZENTIMIHALYI calls flow. And in those moments what he observed from a psychologist perspective is that they temporarily forgot about themselves I can only imagine So, let's find out.
Like they didn't even really know how they were really feeling... if they were hungry, if they were tired. It was like the entire bandwidthh of their human capacity was so focused on something outside of themselves, they were actually forgetting about themselves in that moment And it was that moment that they would describe as the happiest, most ecstatic moment of their lives. A moment of living completely beyond themselves If you think about this is just like normal life I mean, we would all say that our happiest moments in life are moments we're focusing outside of ourselves.
When we're hanging out with people that we love, or when we're playing a sport or engaged in an activity or discovering or learning. Those are happy experiences.
Conversely the times that don't rank highly on people's happiness list, is times when they're focused on themselves. Looking in the mirror. Soul searching. Navel gazing. Listening to their own heartbeat. Those aren't the happiest moments of life. Computer analysis was done on suicidal poets writings and was found to be distinctive about their works that they have a significant increased usage of the personal pronouns I, me and my. You see the problem seat, with typical approach to happiness is that it's very
me-centric. It's all about what I need. The problem is that happiness isn't found by focusing on me at all. Instead, happiness is found when we completely forget about ourselves. That is when we encounter flow. According to CSIKSZENTIMIHALYI...
before You know God is uniquely gifted every single one of you with a special ability to make an impact and a difference in the lives of your fellow believers. Do you know that? And when you're not using that gift to an appropriate challenge level, you kind of get disengaged from your faith. You get a little apathetic about it all. You get a little bored with the whole thing. You see, a climber doesn't really experience flow when they sit down and compose music. Instead they experience frustration. And a composer, on the other hand, they don't experience flow when they try to climb.
They're going to experience frustration as well. What are you experiencing? Is it flow? Or is it frustration? You see frustration comes from when we are either over-challenged or we're under-challenged or we are serving completely outside the gifting that God has given to us. But flow comes whenever the right challenge level meets the right skill level. And then, and only then, we can see God moving though us in an incredible way, have an amazing impact on the people around us and have the highest levels fullfillment you ever experienced before. And what would it look like for you? To find an opportunity to serve in the church, pour yourself out how things are others out of a place that God has uniquely enabled and wired you to be able to do. You know, according to the scriptures, not only would your life have the greatest level of impact, by serving out of your unique gifting. but also experience the highest level of fulfillment that you ever experienced. I don't know about you, but I imagine how amazing it would be if all of us began to live that way. So I say that as a people we become those who completely reject this idea that the way to become happy as a person is by just pouring more and more stuff into us. And, instead, accept the truth, that the way to happiness is by pouring ourselves out into others. What might God do through us as a community? I can only imagine So, let's find out.
So now let me tell you about flow according to Christ. Christ came, he said, "I did not, to be served, but to serve." And He Poured his life out for many. And he said that those who would be his followers... That the defining characteristic of their lives is that they would also be known as servants. As people who put themselves last and they live to pour themselves out into others. And in fact, he went on to say that then and only then is the time when you would be experiencing life to its fullest measure. One of the things I get to see in church is people rise up and decide to kind of throw away the me-centric approach to living. And instead to roll up their sleeved and search to discover their unique gifting and wiring and then begin to serve. To pour out and build into others in the church. In fact, I just got an e-mail from a good friend of mine. He was e-mailing me because four years ago, he accepted the challenge to be a house group leader in our high school ministry. And although it took him rearranging his life, and starting to give so many hours pouring into these students. Four years later he was e-mailing me to thank me. Because he was reflecting on the last four years and how God had used his contribution in order to pour into students and they were reaching four times as many students in the high school that he was overseeing as the ministry was four years ago. and he could not have been more grateful to have been used by God. I love hearing stories like that. I think about the first time that I decided to serve at church. I showed up and I just found a way to serve and it was great
I wasn't focused on myself. It was an incredible experience. And so I went back a second time and a third time and beware you're going to discover this whole serving thing It's addictive. It feels so liberating To be focused on something outside of you, And as great as that felt for me, it's still wasn't flow. In fact, I didn't encounter the flow though serving serving until someone came along and said, "Hey, here's a ministry ministry. You lead it." And once was given the mantle of leadership, I started to notice things flowing out of me that I had no idea were there. I found myself casting vision, building teams and motivating people and aligning people and uniting them in a common direction. And it was it was so far beyond me. And I started to see God doing a work though me, into other's lives. doing the work threw me into other's lives in ways I had never encountered before You know God is uniquely gifted every single one of you with a special ability to make an impact and a difference in the lives of your fellow believers. Do you know that? And when you're not using that gift to an appropriate challenge level, you kind of get disengaged from your faith. You get a little apathetic about it all. You get a little bored with the whole thing. You see, a climber doesn't really experience flow when they sit down and compose music. Instead they experience frustration. And a composer, on the other hand, they don't experience flow when they try to climb.
They're going to experience frustration as well. What are you experiencing? Is it flow? Or is it frustration? You see frustration comes from when we are either over-challenged or we're under-challenged or we are serving completely outside the gifting that God has given to us. But flow comes whenever the right challenge level meets the right skill level.
Everyone wants to be happy. But research has been showing that we have been very wrong about how to find happiness. Picture yourself as a container. We tend to think that if the container of self gets a little low on happiness, then, of course you've got to fill it up. The problem is we think we gotta fill it up with stuff outside of ourselves and so we try to throw some money into the container of self… and then we try to throw a bigger house, a faster car, some new experiences... heck, maybe some new friends. And this works, right? Well, kind of... I mean if you stepped into your car this morning and inhaled some new car scent I bet that would have felt at least a little bit like happiness. Or if you were boarding a cruise ship today... Most of you would say yea yea... I am confident that that would increase my levels of happiness
You see it does work. The problem is it just doesn't work for very long. You see we're like a strainer. As soon as stuff goes in it goes right back out.
It's like day four of the cruise and I'm like, "I hate boats, I just want to go home." You see this "pouring stuff from outside of ourselves into us" approach to finding happiness just doesn't really work. Heres a great way to test your view on happiness. Answer this question If you won the lottery... would it make you happier? I know what you're thinking You're thinking, "Uh, the right answer is to say, 'no' I think," cause you know you can't buy happiness, but deep down, you're thinking, "Uh, YES! Well, of course! Millions of dollars flying into my life? Who wouldn't be happy with that? But instead, research of those who actually won the lottery shows that their happiness curve looks just like that, flat In fact, I can't find a single piece of research that shows any correlation between increased wealth and increased happiness. Let me introduce you to one psychologist. His name is CSIKSZENTIMIHALYI. The toughest name to spell. I dare you to try it. Well, CSIKSZENTIMIHALYI devoted his life studying human happiness. And through his extensive studies, he found the greatest moments of happiness for human beings, come not when they're trying to pour stuff from the from the outside in but actually, when they are pouring from inside out. Whenever a person was pouring themselves into an activity in which they had an area of expertise. Let me explain. Whenever a person engages in an activity at the apex of their skill level, and they are fully challenged in that moment. They would encounter a state that he labeled, Flow. Let me tell you about the first time I experienced flow. I was a college student and me and my friends, we had gotten into rock climbing. And so for years, been climbing multiple days of the week. And I loved climbing, It's intense, it's physically challenging mentally challenging. I loved everything about it. and nine times out of ten, whenever I was climbing, part of the reason I loved it