Why Your Life is Depressing and Why Pickup is Good

In reading Authentic Happiness (Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment) today, I came across a passage by Dr. Martin Seligman that articulated the feelings i have had in the past few months. It also applied to our endeavors in learning pickup.

Dr. Seligman starts out by examining why, in the midst of the wealthiest time period in humanity’s history, human beings are as depressed as ever:

The sheer speed of modern life and our extreme future-mindedness can sneak up on us and impoverish ou rpresent. Alsmot severy tehcnological advance in recent times – from the telephone to the internet, has been about doing more and doing it faster… So invasive is this “virtue” that in even the most innocuous of social conversations, we can catch ourselves not listening well, but instead planning a witty riposte.

Another reason why the free hug campaign is so successful around the world: because we all want to belong:

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Flow of the Game

One of my book reports back in my management consulting days focused around the book “Flow” by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (MC) Flow, according to MC is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Many other terms and idioms exist for this mental state: to be on the ball, in the zone, or in the groove.

MC identifies the following as accompanying an experience of flow:

1.Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities).
2.Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3.A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4.Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered.
5.Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6.Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7.A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8.The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9.People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975. p.72).

Note that not all are needed for flow to be experienced. The night I picked up my last HB8 girlfriend, as well as other nights in the city, mostly, I felt the feeling of flow. Your ego tends to subside, and you just flow with the energy of the location, the people, and the overall flow of the game. These are the best nights, because not only do you learn a lot, your skills are equal to the challenges you are facing in the club during the pickup. In a sense, you’ve seduced yourself, the nice club, and the people, both men and women. This is hard feat, but when you’re in “flow”, it is a great feeling. As an athlete, I realized what “flow” feels like back in 2004, when I did book report. I remember in basketball games, when I should 3 pointers and before the ball hit the rim, I knew the shot was going in. I could see my opponents making a move before they made it. (My nickname was “Beijing Bomber” on the high school basketball team).

So I encourage you to start small, maybe talking to a few strangers. Juggler took the 3 guys in his “Size doesn’t matter” show to a old ladies Bingo game. Mystery had his students in The Pickup Artist tell little girls stories. Start small, build you skills, and you eventually be in situation where you have the competent skills to pickup the girl you want in a club environment.