Time flies when I’m playing golf with my best friend Chris Dunayski. Four hours on the course feels like a half an hour. I never look at the clock. I have no thoughts about work, home, family, troubles. Nothing but golf. I’m fully immersed in the game.
Researchers of peak experiences call this sense of total immersion flow, and it’s the key to our happiness. We’re in flow when we’re “lost in pursuit.” We’re in flow when we lose track of time and sense of self in any activity.
During these experiences, we don’t necessarily feel any emotion. We’re too caught up to even think about how we feel. But looking back on the experiences, we think of them as extremely enjoyable, the happiest times of our lives.
Flow might explain one of comedian Brian Regan’s golf experiences. “I have this friend who got divorced,” says Regan. “I went golfing with him recently. It’s the first time I’d seem him since the divorce. So when I got home, my wife’s like, ‘How’s Gary?'”
Regan pauses. “I don’t know.”
“I thought you went golfing with Gary today,” she said.
“I did.”
“And you don’t know how he’s doing?”
He pauses again. Ponders. “It never came up.”
“Is he dating anyone?”
Another pause. “I don’t know.”
She’s puzzled, shocked even. “Were you two in the same golf cart?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re kidding me! You were in the same golf cart for four hours and you don’t know if he’s dating anyone?”
Regan pauses again. There’s a stupid look on his face. “I know he’s got a new driver.”
Flow makes sense of Regan’s experience, and my own as well. Chris and I talk about things from time to time, but it’s mostly before and after golf. When we are playing, we are thinking about the game. We’re “lost in pursuit.” And any conversation that breaks that pursuit, interrupts the flow, actually takes away from the game.
Imagine Regan’s conversation with his wife again, but substitute basketball for golf. His wife says to him, “You mean to say you were with him the whole afternoon, playing on the same basketball court, and you don’t know if he’s dating anyone?”
Why would anyone ask anyone else about anything but basketball when they’re totally immersed in the game?
Athletes say the same thing. In the NBA, you can be sure, top players aren’t thinking about anything but the game during game time. They are totally immersed, totally absorbed. Lost in pursuit. In the flow.
Flow isn’t just about sports. It’s about any activity where we get lost in pursuit. And the irony is, most of our best flow activities happen at work, not in leisure, though we tend to pursue leisure and shun work. For me, the work of research and writing is just as rewarding as golf. It’s the great game of figuring things out, and communicating them in a way so others can too.
So, what are you doing when lost in pursuit? Find the answer, and you find the key to a happy life.
