If you Google “Who is the happiest man in the world?”, Matthieu Ricard pops up. Ricard, 69, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk originally from France who participated in a 12-year brain study on meditation and compassion which showed that when Ricard was meditating on compassion, his mind was unusually light. His recipe for happiness: Think less about yourself. Thinking about yourself, and how to make things better for yourself all the time, is exhausting, stressful, and ultimately leads to unhappiness, he argues. Ricard advises to start by thinking happy thoughts for 10 to 15 minutes per day. Typically, when we experience feelings of happiness and love, it’s fleeting and then something else happens, and we move on to the next thought. Instead, concentrate on not letting your mind get distracted and keep focused on the positive emotions for the next stretch of time.
The ‘world’s happiest man’ says the secret to being happy takes just 15 minutes per day
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