Flow and happiness through work

3 years ago, I experienced one of the happiest days of my life.

And in case you are wondering what life-changing thing happened that day, the answer is — nothing. All I was doing was teaching finance to a new class of investment bankers at Avendus, all sharp and inquisitive MBAs from India’s top B-Schools.

This was the last day of the 3-day training program I do almost every year, just to keep my finance knowledge alive. On the 3rd day, I was teaching valuation, the holy grail of finance. I love the subject, and for 8 hrs, we were so immersed in it that I totally lost sense of time.

That day, we did not change the world. It was just a training session. Yet, it was exhilarating.

Now I know that there is a name for that experience — renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it ‘flow.’

I have always told myself that happiness does not come from money. Yet, even though we intellectually understand it, our subconscious mind doesn’t accept it.

But that day, I felt convinced there is a way for all of us to access happiness. And money is not that way.

All we need is to do things in which we get so absorbed that we lose track of everything else. It is possible. And it is accessible to all of us.

There you have it — a real path to a happy life.

– Rajan

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