People occasionally ask me why I enjoy fishing so much. Many assume it is the thrill of catching fish. If that were true, I probably would have quit fishing years ago. I have been on more than a few trips where the fish simply weren’t buying what I was selling.  

What keeps me coming back is something much harder to explain. There is nothing quite like being on the water before sunrise. The world is quiet.  As the first light begins to spread across the water, everything slowly comes to life. Birds begin to stir. Fish start feeding. As the day passes,the tides move in their steady rhythm. Before long, I become completely absorbed in all of it. Somewhere along the way, I stop thinking about deadlines, emails, client problems, and everything else competing for space in my mind. 

A ten-hour day on the water can feel like two. When I come home, I am usually tired. But I am also recharged in a way that is difficult to describe to someone who has never experienced it. 

Fishing just happens to be my version of that experience. Yours might be woodworking, painting, gardening, restoring an old car, playing the piano, baking, hiking, fly tying, photography, running, or any number of other activities. Almost everyone has something that draws them in so completely that, for a while, the outside world simply disappears. 

Psychologists have a name for this experience. They call it flow. The concept was developed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who spent decades studying what he called “optimal experiences.” By that, he meant those moments when people become so completely absorbed in an activity that they lose awareness of the outside world and experience a deep sense of enjoyment and fulfillment.  He discovered that people engaged in remarkably different activities described the same mental state. Whether they were surgeons, artists, musicians, athletes, writers, rock climbers, or chess players, they all talked about periods of complete immersion where they became fully engaged in the task before them. 

Flow is not simply relaxation. In fact, it usually occurs while doing something that requires effort. The activity must be challenging enough to hold our attention but not so difficult that it becomes frustrating or overwhelming. When our skills are well matched to the challenge, we become fully engaged. We stop thinking about ourselves and focus entirely on the task. One of the hallmarks of flow is that our perception of time changes. Hours can seem like minutes. 

That helps explain why fishing is so restorative for me. Fishing demands enough concentration that there is little room left for everything else. Every cast presents another small puzzle. Should I change lures? Fish deeper? Target a different bank? Retrieve the lure faster or slower? Is that movement on the water baitfish or simply the wind? My mind has no capacity left to replay yesterday’s difficult conversation or worry about tomorrow’s deadlines. 

In many ways, flow functions like meditation. Instead of trying to force your mind to become quiet, the activity naturally occupies your attention so completely that there is no room left for mental clutter. 

Researchers have found that regularly experiencing flow is associated with lower stress, greater well-being, increased creativity, improved learning, and higher life satisfaction. The specific activity matters much less than the experience itself. What matters is finding something that fully engages both your attention and your abilities. 

One of the challenges for busy lawyers is that we gradually abandon the very activities most likely to create flow. As our calendars fill up and we feel the pressure of billable hours, hobbies begin to feel unproductive. We convince ourselves that every free hour should be spent catching up on work, answering email, or checking off one more item on the to-do list. 

Ironically, those “unproductive” activities may be among the most productive investments we can make in our own well-being. Recharge is not always found in doing less. Sometimes it is found in becoming so completely absorbed in something meaningful that, for a little while, we lose track of ourselves. 

If someone asks me why I enjoy fishing so much, I still may not have a simple answer. I just know that at the end of a day on the water, I come home mentally refreshed in a way that is hard to explain.