Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi shaped & influenced the lives of many students, including me

Thirty years ago, I was bored and directionless in a Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. My father had just died somewhat unexpectedly at the youthful age of 57 and I committed from that moment on, I would ONLY do work that was fun, juicy, and creative. 

After a couple of months spent grieving my father’s passing, I threw out all the boring shit I’d been working on and let my imagination wander to the things I felt most passionately about. I wrote up two pages of musings about how adults learn in everyday life and dropped them off at the office of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (“Mike”).

Mike liked what I wrote. He agreed to be my academic advisor and took me under his wing. I’d never had a mentor before and felt somewhat confused and disoriented by his interest. Up to that point, I’d never had any kind of adult take any interest in me at all. I’d always attended huge public schools where I was lost in a sea of faces.

Mike encouraged my ideas, read everything I gave him, asked me to coauthor articles with him, and found an academic position for me when I graduated. In my final dissertation hearing, he defended my radical ideas in front of the other conventional (stodgy) faculty members.  But he also pulled me aside afterwards and instructed me to NEVER mention the heart in an academic setting. Ever. He said I’d be “laughed out of the room.” At the time, it felt like criticism. But looking back, I can see he was speaking from his own experience. He soon left the University of Chicago for more academic freedom at Claremont Graduate University.

I felt like I disappointed him when I escaped to Montana after completing my Ph.D without publishing the research that I’d conducted with him. I also declined the academic teaching job that he found for me.

I needed to be a hippie for awhile.

After several years of nomadic life, I reconnected with Mike. Academically, I felt like a failure, but he never treated me that way. 

In the subsequent years, he graciously read and gave me feedback on drafts of my books, recommended me for teaching positions, and introduced me to his agent (he cautioned me that it would be a long shot and it was… too long of a shot.)

My story is only one out of hundreds. Mike shaped and influenced the lives of many, many students throughout his long career.

We don’t fully realize the impact that someone has had on us until they’re gone. It’s only in hindsight, looking back, that we begin to see and understand their significance.

Today is the one-year anniversary of his death.

I’d like to thank him for his kindness, intelligence, creativity, and grace. And for seeing me.