# The difference between pleasure and enjoyment is the amount of psychic energy spent

The difference between pleasure and enjoyment is the amount of Psychic energy spent on an activity. Pleasure normally is a passive activity. When you watch a TV, for example, your brain doesn’t have to work as hard as when you’re reading.

See: Pleasure can be converted to enjoyment.


# References

Mihaly, Flow (pp. 46 - 47).

[…], we can experience pleasure without any investment of psychic energy, whereas enjoyment happens only as a result of unusual investment of attention. Complexity requires investing psychic energy in goals that are new, that are relatively challenging.