“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.”

—  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's …" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi?
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi photo
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 13
Hungarian American psychologist 1934

Related quotes

Emil M. Cioran photo

“Boredom is a larval anxiety; depression, a dreamy hatred.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

Paul Karl Feyerabend photo

“And where is the boundary-if there is a boundary-between a collective outlook and "the world"?. Many cultures assume such a boundary, but they set it in different places. Divine appearances once were real- they are mere fantasies today. Where shall we, who examine the phenomenon, set the boundary?”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

pg 27.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

Miguel de Unamuno photo

“But the capacity to enjoy is impossible without the capacity to suffer; and the faculty of enjoyment is one with that of pain. Whosoever does not suffer does not enjoy, just as whosoever is insensible to cold is insensible to heat.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity

Saul Bellow photo

“Boredom is the conviction that you can't change… the shriek of unused capacities.”

Saul Bellow book The Adventures of Augie March

Source: The Adventures of Augie March

Paul Tillich photo

“The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God disappears in the anxiety of doubt.”

Paul Tillich book The Courage to Be

The Courage to Be (1952)

Edmund Burke photo

“There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feeling; none when they are under the influence of imagination.”

Edmund Burke book An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs

Source: An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), p. 460

“We define boredom as the pain a person feels when he’s doing nothing or something irrelevant, instead of something he wants to do but won’t, can’t, or doesn’t dare. Boredom is acute when he knows the other thing and inhibits his action, e. g., out of politeness, embarrassment, fear of punishment or shame. Boredom is chronic if he has repressed the thought of it and no longer is aware of it. A large part of stupidity is just the chronic boredom, for a person can’t learn, or be intelligent about, what he’s not interested in, when his repressed thoughts are elsewhere.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Another large part of stupidity is stubbornness, unconsciously saying, “I won’t. You can’t make me.”
Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), pp. 71-72.

Bhimsen Joshi photo

“Music challenged him and he pushed its boundaries.”

Bhimsen Joshi (1922–2011) Indian vocalist

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi passes away, 25 January 2011, 29 November 2013, Times of India http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-01-25/pune/28360943_1_kirana-gharana-maestro-pandit-bhimsen-joshi-sawai-gandharva,

Barbara W. Tuchman photo

“Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.”

Barbara W. Tuchman book A Distant Mirror

Source: A Distant Mirror (1978), p. 469

C.G. Jung photo

“Psychological or spiritual development always requires a greater capacity for anxiety and ambiguity.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Related topics