Good Business_ Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [107]
It is the very flexibility of relationships that makes it possible to transform unpleasant interactions into tolerable, or even exciting ones. How we define and interpret a social situation makes a great difference to how people will treat one another, and to how they will feel while doing it. For instance, when our son Mark was twelve years old, he took a shortcut across a rather deserted park one afternoon as he walked home from school. In the middle of the park he was suddenly confronted by three large young men from the neighboring ghetto. “Don’t make a move or he’ll shoot you,” one of them said, nodding toward the third man, who had his hand in his pocket. The three took away everything Mark had—some change and a worn Timex. “Now keep on going. Don’t run, don’t even turn around.”
So Mark started walking again toward home, and the three went in the other direction. After a few steps, however, Mark turned around and tried to catch up with them. “Listen,” he called, “I want to talk to you.”“Keep going,” they shouted back. But he caught up with the trio, and asked if they would reconsider giving him back the watch they had taken. He explained that it was very cheap, and of no possible value to anyone except him: “You see, it was given to me on my birthday by my parents.” The three were furious, but finally decided to take a vote on whether to give back the watch. The vote went two to one in favor of returning it, so Mark walked proudly home without change but with the old watch in his pocket. Of course it took his parents a lot longer to recover from the experience.
From an adult perspective, Mark was foolish to possibly risk his life for an old watch, no matter how sentimentally valued it was. But this episode illustrates an important general point: that a social situation has the potential to be transformed by redefining its rules. By not taking on the role of the “victim” that had been imposed on him, and by not treating his assailants as “robbers,” but as reasonable people who might be expected to empathize with a son’s attachment to a family keepsake, Mark was able to change the encounter from a holdup to one that involved, at least to some degree, a rational democratic decision. In this case his success was largely dependent on luck: the robbers could have been drunk, or alienated beyond the reach of reason, and then he might have been seriously hurt. But the point is still valid: human relations are malleable, and if a person has the appropriate skills their rules can be transformed.
But before considering in more depth how relationships can be reshaped to provide optimal experiences, it is necessary to take a detour through the realms of solitude. Only after understanding a bit better how being alone affects the mind can we see more clearly why companionship is so indispensable to well-being. The average adult spends about one-third of his or her waking time alone, yet we know very little about this huge slice of our lives, except that we heartily dislike it.
THE PAIN OF LONELINESS
Most people feel a nearly intolerable sense of emptiness when they are alone, especially with nothing specific to do. Adolescents, adults, and old people all report that their worst experiences have taken place in solitude. Almost every activity is more enjoyable with another person around, and less so when one does it alone. People are more happy, alert, and cheerful if there are others present, compared to how they feel alone, whether they are working on an assembly line or watching television. But the most depressing condition is not that of working or watching TV alone; the worst moods are reported when one is alone and there is nothing that needs to be done. For people in our studies who live by themselves and do not attend church, Sunday mornings are the lowest part of the week, because with no demands on attention, they are unable to decide what to do. The rest of the week psychic energy is directed by external routines: work, shopping, favorite TV shows, and so on. But what is one