What Torments The Happiest Man In The World?
Matthieu Ricard is a Tibetan Buddhist monk who is involved in the study and development of the effects of mental training on the brain at the Universities of Madison-Wisconsin, Princeton and Berkeley. Scientists from the University of Wisconsin (USA) affirmed that Matthieu is the happiest man in the world (or at least the happiest of all those who participated in the study), after analyzing the activity of his brain during a 12-year study , in which some important factors were taken into account, such as meditation or compassion.
In this research they studied their brain function with different techniques and tools, some as modern as nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Through these procedures, a high level of activity was recorded in the left prefrontal cerebral cortex, which is associated with positive emotions.
Such is the impact of the results of this study, published in 2004 by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, that they constitute the fifth most consulted scientific reference in history.
Comparison is the happiness killer
According to the happiest man in the world, the key factor that seems to kill happiness is the habit of comparing ourselves with others. In this sense, the monk also revealed that he does not agree with the “title” that has been given to him – the happiest man in the world – as he considers it “absurd”.
In this way, neuroscience has revealed what makes the happiest man in the world “unhappy”: comparing himself to others. Think that when we compare ourselves with others we only see a part of the lives of others. Generally, when buying from us we only focus on the successful or outstanding part of the other people, without taking into account that there is another less enviable part.
When we see someone who has been successful, we tend to think that the person has been lucky and has found the right situation to achieve it . We rarely witness the process and the sacrifices it entails: we only see the result. We don’t watch backstage or attend rehearsals, we hardly appreciate the show. And therefore, when we compare ourselves, we are left with a feeling of inferiority that generates dissatisfaction.
Happiness comes with the years
According to a study by Andrew Oswald, professor of Economics and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, in which more than 500,000 people spread out between America and Europe were evaluated, happiness comes with the years. Along the same lines, the research was developed in which the group of scientists from the University of Wisconsin discovered the happiest man in the world.
Although early adulthood is accompanied by optimism and joy, things gradually get complicated until they look a lot like misfortune when the crisis of the 40s arrives. According to studies by the most serious institutes in the world, such as the America’s General Social Survey, while the unhappiest people are between 40 and 50 years old, the happiest are those in their 70s.
And this has little to do with income or health. Layard had shown that beyond an annual income of $15,000 per inhabitant (or its equivalent in purchasing power), the increase in a country’s GDP no longer has an impact on the level of well-being. Americans, he said, are richer than Danes (on average), but they are not happier.
In addition to the age variable, daily meditation contributes to happiness, or at least science has supported it. The University of Wisconsin Meditation and Compassion Study showed that 20 minutes of daily meditation can be enough to increase our subjective well-being.
The scans in this study showed very high activity while meditating in the left prefrontal cortex of your brain, compared to its right counterpart, allowing it to have an abnormally large capacity for happiness and a reduced propensity for negativity.
