It isn't surprising that we are most happy when we are able to forget ourselves. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book 'Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience' t

It isn't surprising that we are most happy when we are able to forget ourselves. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book 'Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience' talks about optimal experiences. He has found that humans are generally happy in what is termed as a 'flow' experience. Activities in which we immerse ourselves fully, temporarly forgetting ourselves, like programming, are flow experiences. A few relevant quotes from the book: "So loss of self-consciousness does not involve a loss of self, and certainly not a loss of consciousness, but rather, only a loss of consciousness of the self. What slips below the threshold of awareness is the concept of self, the information we use to represent to ourselves who we are. And being able to forget temporarily who we are seems to be very enjoyable. When not preoccupied with our selves, we actually have a chance to expand the concept of who we are. Loss of self-consciousness can lead to self-transcendence, to a feeling that the boundaries of our being have been pushed forward." "The similarities between Yoga and flow are extremely strong; in fact it makes sense to think of Yoga as a very thoroughly planned flow activity. Both try to achieve a joyous, self-forgetful involvement through concentration, which in turn is made possible by a discipline of the body." "When a family has a common purpose and open channels of communication, when it provides gradually expanding opportunities for action in a setting of trust, then life in it becomes an enjoyable flow activity. Its members will spontaneously focus their attention on the group relationship, and to a certain extent forget their individual selves, their divergent goals, for the sake of experiencing the joy of belonging to a more complex system that joins separate consciousnesses in a unified goal."