George Bernard Shaw- Irish playwright, writer, novelist, Nobel Prize winner in literature, one of the most famous Irish literary figures. Public figure. One of the founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The second most popular playwright in the English theater.
He is the only person to have received both the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Academy Award.

• The secret of our unhappiness is that we have time to reflect on whether we are happy or not.
• Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
• Ideal love is possible only by correspondence.
• Now that we have learned to fly through the air like birds, to swim underwater like fish, we lack only one thing: to learn how to live on earth like people.
• All men are the same in front of the woman they admire.
• The test of good manners for a man or woman is their behavior during a quarrel.
• You can't learn to skate if you're afraid to be funny. The ice of life is slippery.
• The longer I live, the more I tend to think that the Earth plays the role of a lunatic asylum in the solar system.
• Why is the world so arranged that people who know how to live for their own pleasure never have money, and those who have money have no idea what it means to burn life?
• A person suffering from a toothache considers everyone who does not have a toothache to be happy. The poor make the same mistake about the rich.
• The world is made up of slackers who want to have money without working and idiots who are willing to work without getting rich.
• My way of joking is to tell the truth. There is nothing funnier in the world.
• Women somehow immediately guess with whom we are ready to cheat on them. Sometimes even before it crosses our minds.
• If a person decides to kill a tiger, it is called sport; and if a tiger decides to kill a man, it is called bloodlust.
• A smart young woman has to choose between dumb and full of strength and health young men and smart and - how should I put it - old goats avid for women.
• Love men. They really need your love. Even if they never admit it. Behind every great man there is always a woman who believed in him. And she truly loved.
• The only lesson that can be learned from history is that people do not learn any lessons from history.
• An ideal husband is a man who believes that he has an ideal wife.
• Tell a man that there are 978,301,246,569,987 stars in the sky and he will believe. but put up a "freshly painted" sign, and he will certainly check with his finger.
• The thinner the ice, the more everyone wants to make sure it can withstand.
• If you ever find it while chasing happiness, you will find, like an old woman looking for her glasses, that happiness was always on your nose.
• Atrocities do not cease to be atrocities if they happen in laboratories and are called medical experiments.
• I don't like to fight, I like to win.
• Most of all, people are interested in what does not concern them at all.
• Never point out mistakes if you don't know how to fix them.
• Don't try to live forever, you won't succeed.
• Freedom means responsibility. That is why most people are afraid of freedom.
• There is no woman who manages to say "goodbye" in less than thirty words.
• George Bernard Shaw was a vegetarian from the age of 25 and lived to be 94. At the age of 70, when asked by a journalist: “How do you feel?” he replied: "Fine, but the doctors bother me, saying that I will die if I do not eat meat." At the age of 90, he answered the same question: “Fine, no one bothers me anymore: those doctors who scared me that I couldn’t live without meat have already died.”
• A healthy nation does not notice its nationality just like a healthy person does not notice his spine.
• Those who teach the most know the least.

If you know how to say "no" and leave when you want, then you are a happy person.

Leave early. Leave often. Feel free to leave when needed.

It doesn't mean walking away from something because it's hard. It means moving away from what spoils your life. From what prevents you from being truly happy.

Sometimes leaving is the best thing to do, and sometimes it's the only thing to do. We don't always have to finish everything we start, and sometimes it's better to leave something behind to start over and go in a new direction if we want to achieve happiness.

1. Quit a job you hate. Or from a job where you have been working for many years and do not see progress or due appreciation. It's easier than you think - finding what you like best, starting a new career, or finding someone who believes in your talent and is willing to give you a chance.

2. Stop making excuses for your mediocre life. Stop believing that circumstances are stronger than us. We think we're doing ourselves a favor by forcing ourselves to be happy with what we have or to accept a life we're not happy with. But the best comes when we take risks, when we try harder, when we go all in, when we stop making excuses for our mediocre lives.

3. Leave indefinite love. Leave the toxic relationships, the ones that make you miserable, the ones that you don't know what to call. Give yourself time to get over the breakup, cry but walk away, finish them because it will definitely be better without them.

4. Walk away from friends who put you down. The ones that make nasty jokes about you, those that try to rise at your expense, those that don't make your life better, those that point to your shortcomings. Get rid of this extra burden.

5. Leave a city you no longer belong to. Where nothing ever changes, where you already know every corner, where everyone knows who you are. The city that broke you too many times. Leave it to start over in a new city, leave behind painful memories and try to rediscover yourself.

6. Stop saying yes when you want to say no. Stop putting your health and well-being at risk because you don't want to upset other people. Stop feeling like you have to be present wherever you are invited. Stop giving in to pressure. Say "no" more often and see how it changes your life.

7. Stop worrying so much about what others think. Stop adapting to others in order to please them, stop living on someone's approval. Stop thinking about what they said, stop believing that they know you better than you know yourself.

8. Leave your past. You no longer live in it, and it doesn't have to haunt you every time you try to move on. Leave past mistakes, failures, the past that no longer characterizes you.

9. Stop lying to yourself. Deep down you know what you have to get away from. Your heart knows when is the right time to do it. Your mind knows that you'll be fine when you're gone. So stop telling yourself that you can't leave, stop saying that leaving is bad. In fact, it can be your salvation.

A slightly strange title - the happiest person on earth. But neuroscientist Richard Davidson argues that this is exactly what French molecular biologist-turned-Buddhist monk Mathieu Ricard is. Now Mathieu is 66 years old, 40 years ago he left his life in Paris to go to India to study Buddhism. He is now the Dalai Lama's confidante and a respected western expert on religion.

But it turns out that daily meditation brought Mathieu another advantage: he enjoys life like no one else in this world. Scanning the brain of Mathieu Ricard, Richard Davidson discovered in him the largest potential ever recorded. As Mathieu himself says, meditation changes the brain, which means it changes you completely. And he assures that everyone can become like him if he learns to let his thoughts float freely.

Neurologist Richard Davidson examined Mathieu as part of his study of advanced meditation practitioners at the University of Wisconsin. He connected 256 sensors to the monk's head, and scanning showed that during meditation on compassion, Mathieu Ricard's brain generates gamma waves. They are associated with consciousness, attention, learning and memory. Prior to this study, such a response had not yet been reported in the neuroscience literature, Davidson states.

Andy Francis and Antoine Lutz attach sensors to Mathieu Ricard's head. www.dailymail.co.uk

The scans also showed excessive activity in the left prefrontal cortex compared to the right, which the researchers believe is indicative of reduced negativity and an abnormal ability to experience happiness.

Research into the phenomenon of neuroplasticity is in its infancy, and Mathieu Ricard, along with several leading scientists around the world, was the first to start experimenting in this area.

Neuroplasticity is a property of the human brain, which consists in the ability to change under the influence of experience, as well as restore lost connections after damage or as a response to external influences. This property has been described relatively recently.

He believes that meditation can change the brain and make people feel more joyful, just like regular weight training strengthens muscles.

We have been studying the short and long term effects of mind training through meditation on attention, compassion, and emotional balance for 12 years. And found remarkable results in practitioners who have completed over 50,000 meditation cycles, as well as in beginners who meditate for only 20 minutes a day for three weeks - such a regimen, of course, is more applicable to modern life. These are marvelous studies because they prove that meditation is not bliss under a mango tree, it is something that changes your brain and yourself.

Mathieu Ricard

Ricard has written several books. The first, "The Monk and the Philosopher", along with his father, the philosopher Jean-François Revel (Jean-François Revel). These are dialogues about the meaning of life. Ricard published the following book in 2011 - practical guide"The Art of Meditation", which explains how and why everyone should master meditation.

1. A healthy mind should work like a mirror: faces are reflected in it, but do not linger. It is the same with thoughts: let them flow freely through your mind, don't stop them.

2. It is impossible not to let thoughts into your head, but a certain sound or calms the mind, bringing clarity. By controlling the mind, you do not limit your freedom, but you stop being a slave to your thoughts. You need to control your mind like a boat.

3. Learn to be mindful, pay attention to the sensations of inhalation and exhalation. If you find yourself distracted, focus on your breathing. Use awareness to move into the present instead of dwelling on the past or thinking about the future. Feel the heat, the cold, the sounds you hear.

4. When you achieve some mastery, you can cultivate kindness in yourself or deal with interfering emotions. You may even feel an all-consuming love, usually this feeling lasts 15 seconds, but you can keep it by focusing on it during. When you feel it getting blurry, revive it.

5. It can be compared to playing the piano: practicing 20 minutes a day will give you more noticeable results than if you spend a few seconds on it. Regular practice is as essential as water is to a plant.

6. You can use meditation to let go of negative emotions.

Your emotions are fire. If you are aware of anger, you are not angry, you are simply aware of it. Being aware of anxiety, you are not disturbed, you are simply aware of it. Being aware of your emotions, you do not add fuel to the fire, and they will quickly burn out.

Mathieu Ricard

7. After a month of constant practice, you will see improvements: less stress, more overall well-being. Those who say they don't have time to meditate should understand the benefits. If meditation gives you the strength to make good use of the remaining 23 hours and 40 minutes, then 20 minutes were well spent.

The book became a bestseller, and my peace of mind came to an end. Suddenly, I was transported to the Western world. I talked a lot with scientists, and everything began to get out of my control. I became involved in scientific research and the science of meditation.

Mathieu Ricard

Now the famous monk Matthieu Ricard of Shechen Monastery in Kathmandu divides his time of the year into meditation, scientific research and accompaniment on his trips to French-speaking countries and scientific conferences. He spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos during financial crisis 2009 to tell the politicians and business leaders gathered there that the time had come to abandon greed in favor of "enlightened altruism."

Mathieu has been awarded the French Order of Merit for his work in preserving Himalayan culture, but his work on the science of happiness characterizes him better. It seems that Mathieu Ricard lives a good life and shows compassion, not because religion requires it, but because this is the road to happiness.

Check to believe. Buddhism tries to unravel the mechanisms of happiness and suffering. This is the science of the mind.

Everyone, perhaps, will answer this complex and multifaceted question differently. And even the same person at different periods of his life and in different moods can give different definitions of this state. And all because it is deeply subjective.

Scientifically, happiness is defined as a state of satisfaction or a response to the satisfaction of a need. Everyone has different needs, so the concept of happiness is also different.

Based on a scientific definition, sociologists are constantly trying to find out which country has the most happy citizens. So where do the happiest people on Earth live, who are they? Do their worldviews, material factors, or something else determine their level of happiness?

How to measure happiness?

To determine the happiest place on earth, it is necessary to use a conditional measure of happiness. What is he?

Based on the scientific definition of happiness, you need to look for the happiest people on earth where the needs of people are most fully satisfied. As it turned out as a result of research, people have not so many needs, and they can be systematized into groups:

Social guarantees of the state;

The level of material well-being;

Environmental Safety;

life expectancy;

Freedom.

The happiest nations in the world according to international statistics

The latest research by international experts was conducted in 2017, using data on 155 countries for 2014-2016. So where do the happiest people in the world live, and by what criteria did sociologists determine this?

They assessed, among other things, the level of GDP, life expectancy, the feeling of support for the government and trust in it, as well as anxiety, anger, sadness and other negative feelings of the inhabitants of the country.

According to the results of these studies, the happiest people on earth live in Northern Europe. And Norway is named the happiest country. This is a state by level social services is in first place in the world. Norway has the world's largest GDP per capita, as well as the world's most equitable financial distribution system. 95% of Norwegians are also satisfied with the level of freedom.

Last year, this country was only in fourth place. And the leading position was occupied by Denmark, and in the first place it turned out to be three times in a row.

Denmark is known for its rather strong family institution, strong bond between children and parents. The basic right of the citizens of this country is high-quality free medicine. Danes also prioritize gender equality.

The top five countries where the happiest people on earth live also include Iceland, Switzerland, and Finland.

In them, the standard of living of the population is quite high, there are more rich and healthy people. But material well-being is far from the only indicator of happiness ...

Friendship and solidarity are the key to life satisfaction

As it turned out, in order to feel happy, it is important for people to feel the support of both the state and their countrymen.

In countries that are officially named the happiest, helping one's neighbor is "in the blood." There is an opinion that in the states where the happiest people on Earth live - Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland and Sweden - people feel satisfied with life thanks to an unspoken set of rules governing life in a society that does not recognize the right to individualism - the so-called Law Jante. This "law" actually helps in creating a friendly and very close-knit society. Maybe it is in this cohesion and sense of elbow main reason why people in the Nordic countries feel so happy?

Citizens also feel satisfied when they realize that their activities are needed by society. In other words, if the citizens of a country consider themselves an important link in its life, they feel a surge of enthusiasm and happiness. Participation in the life of the state, the true power of the people develop mutual trust in society, which is a component of social capital. And such capital is no less important than material capital.

Maintain a delicate balance

Material well-being, no doubt, is very important for a person to be comfortable and convenient. But it's far from the best main factor which makes you feel happy. Even a very prosperous person, living in abundance, is extremely unhappy. And a resident of a poor country can feel absolutely happy just because the sun is shining and close people are nearby.

The accumulation of material wealth, according to the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama, can only achieve external happiness. But it will be fleeting without inner, spiritual happiness.

An unspiritual person loses the ability to perceive the world in all its versatility, and even having all the riches of the world, cannot feel happy. This feeling is available only to those who combine the spiritual and the material. Everyone must certainly take care of his body and its needs, but it must be treated as a receptacle for the soul. The Dalai Lama perceives the soul as a subtle matter that gives meaning to the physical existence of the body.

Only the one who manages to maintain this balance of spiritual and material can safely be called a happy person.

The happiest people on earth: who are they?

We already know about the happiest countries and peoples, but there are also individuals whom everyone calls the lucky ones.

Buddhist monk Matthew Rickard, officially known as the happiest man on earth, received this status as a result of a study whose purpose was to identify the effect of meditation on the brain.

Hundreds of people took part in the research, which was led by neurologist Richard Davidson. Magnetic resonance imaging has shown that Matthew's brain generates a level of gamma waves during meditation that has never been described by science before.

In Buddhist monk Matthew Ricard, a friend of the Dalai Lama, scientists also found high activity in the left cerebral cortex, which is responsible for a positive outlook on the world.

A man who has eight lives - isn't he lucky?

Known for his luck, which never left him, and Frano Selak from Croatia. This man was on the verge of death 7 times, but he always managed to deceive her. The first time it happened was in the 60s. Frano Selak was on a train that derailed and went under water. Since this catastrophe occurred in a freezing cold, the passengers had little chance of surviving. But this man managed to be among the few who survived.

A few years later, Frano Selak was again in mortal danger. The plane on which he was flying, during landing, touched the top of the mountain with his tail. The impact was so strong that the door opened. There were only two unbelted people on the plane at that moment: a pretty stewardess and a passenger who decided to hit on her and followed the girl to the tail section. This passenger was our hero. Through the opened door, both flew out when the plane was 600 meters from the ground. Frano's life when falling from such a height was saved by a large snowdrift, into which he landed. The girl also remained alive, clinging to a tree branch. A year later, these two were legally married and feel like the happiest people on earth.

Frano not only many times miraculously avoided death, but also won the lottery, as befits the favorite of fortune. And won neither more nor less - a million dollars! With this money, the happy Croat reconstructed the Temple, built the chapel of the Virgin Mary. The remaining dollars he spent on travel or simply distributed to relatives and friends. Frano is sure that at his age you should get maximum pleasure from money!

If smiles are taken as a criterion

If we make the opinions of the inhabitants of the countries themselves the criterion for measuring happiness, then we get a different picture from the official one. The happiest people on Earth, in their own opinion, live in far from rich countries. Latin America: Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador, as well as in Asian countries - Fiji, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam.

Interesting conclusions were drawn after analyzing 150 million photographs from the popular social network"Instagram". The criterion of life satisfaction analysts have made the number of smiles in the pictures.

Most often, Latin Americans smiled in the photo.

In Asia, the most smiling were the inhabitants of the Philippines, in second place in terms of smiles - the inhabitants of Kazakhstan. And the most gloomy in Asia are the Uzbeks.

In Europe, judging by the smiles in the photo, the people of Macedonia live the happiest of all, and the Romanians are not far behind them.

Happiness is in ourselves

Everyone wants happiness. But many, for unknown reasons, believe that happy people live somewhere far away, in rich countries. And dreaming of living in one of these happy states, they do not know how to find joy and satisfaction in the most important things that fill a person's life with meaning: in love, respect, support, creativity, spirituality. But it is from these components that happiness is formed ...

“Happiness is the flight of the soul in a certain aspect of life circumstances,” wrote
Venedikt Nemov.

Happiness is a magical and unexplored phenomenon by science. Everyone knows about its existence, but few can give an exact answer to what happiness is and what are its main components. Maybe the reason for the dilemma is that for each person it is something different. Guided by their life values, people build their own understanding. So, for example, a rich person may consider himself deeply unhappy due to the lack of true friends nearby, but a poor person, on the contrary, will envy the wealth of a wealthy person.

Believe or not believe

Who do not believe in the existence of happiness or believe, but believe that it lasts only a moment. But who is the happiest person on earth? Or is it a whole group of people?

There are those who believe that this is only a moment of pleasure, which has a habit of ending quickly. But which of them is right, it is impossible to say for sure, and in general, whether this is necessary, because each person is free to think as he pleases. Are there the happiest people on earth whose photos we can see?

Frano Selak - the most in the world

In the list of "The happiest people on earth", the first place is occupied by Frano Selak, who lives in Croatia. The title of the happiest man on earth was given to him because of the luck that never left him for a day.

It turns out that Frano escaped death 7 times, in each case he was literally in the balance, but something always helped him. His first miraculous rescue happened back in the 60s. The train Frano was traveling on derailed and went under water. Despite the freezing cold and all the horror of the situation, he managed to get out and be among the survivors.

Frano Selak and happy flight

A few years later, he again found himself in mortal danger. The plane, which our lucky man was flying, touched the top of a low mountain during landing. A strong blow opened the door, and the only unbelted passenger and the stewardess flew out. It's just that Frano was always open to love, and, noticing a pretty stewardess, he decided to take care of her, so he followed her to the staff cabin, which was located in the tail section of the plane. They fell at a distance of 600 meters above the ground, Frano successfully landed in a large snowdrift, which saved his life.

Agree, the story is more like the plot of a science fiction film, because in real life such luck is very rare. The girl also managed to escape, she caught on a tree branch. The couple got married a year after they met. These two are the happiest people on earth. They not only miraculously escaped, but also found their love under incredible circumstances.

Throughout his life, Frano skillfully avoided death and, as the real favorite of Fortune, even won a million dollars in the lottery. He spent the winnings on the reconstruction of the temple, the construction of the chapel of the Virgin Mary and travel. He simply distributed the rest to his friends, explaining that simple pieces of paper should not be kept in a bank at his age. It is better to get maximum pleasure from them and not regret anything.

Meditation as a way to be happy

One more person can be added to the list of “The Happiest People on Earth”, a 66-year-old monk who devoted his life to meditation and became close to the Dalai Lama. He claims that daily meditation makes him happy. This statement was of great interest to scientists, and they decided to check with their own eyes whether this is true.

The brain scan of Mathieu Ricard was carried out while the monk was meditating using 256 sensors attached to his head. During the study, it was found that the left brain at the time of reading the prayer is in activity. It is the activation of this zone that gives the monk a feeling of happiness and joy. Mathieu Ricard is truly the happiest person on earth thanks to meditation he has been practicing for many decades.

The happiest people on earth

The story of these two is really amazing and unusual. They certainly consider themselves lucky, but the title of “the happiest people on earth” has already been given to them by reporters and journalists who described their story in their articles.

But not only individuals can be happy, Daniel Everett confidently asserts. For 30 years he lived surrounded by the Indian tribe of Pirah. For all the time he lived among the unusual, unlike the rest of the people of the tribe, he came to the conclusion that these natives are the happiest people on earth. Everett completely changed his mind, renounced God and began a new life.

Name change and fresh food

People are distinguished by a peculiar idea of ​​the world. First, they are not particularly polite. They do not have words such as “thank you”, “please”, etc. in their vocabulary. They are afraid to sleep for a long time, because they believe that during sleep you can lose yourself. They also change their name often. Usually 5-6 times in a lifetime, each name can refer to a specific age period.

They do not think about tomorrow, the writer was very surprised by this fact. Unlike other tribes, they do not stock up, living on fresh food such as wild-caught fish and fruits that are harvested from the forest. In their understanding, there is no single god, they only believe in ghosts that live in their forests.

Happiness without worries

Daniel Everett, throughout his time in the tribe, realized that these people are carefree and happy. Life is not filled with problems, they spend all their days by the fire, enjoying food and dancing their unusual dances. Them main emotion on the face is joy, and laughter is heard around the clock.

But are the happiest people on earth really those who can go to another continent and live in the Pirahã tribe? Of course not, because Daniel Everett, like Mathieu Ricard, simply found his happiness in something that was right for him.

Components of happiness

Who is the happiest person on earth? There is a generally accepted canon of happiness, this includes the main values ​​\u200b\u200bof a person, thanks to which he can become happy:

• health;
• love;
• family;
• successful career;
• wealth.

Happy countries ranking

Not only people and tribes can be happy. Here are the happiest people on earth (country ranking):

1. America.
2. Denmark.
3. France.
4. Germany.
5. Australia.
6. United Kingdom.
7. Canada.
8. Netherlands.
9. Switzerland.

Here, the measure is economic stability and comfortable living of the country's inhabitants. As well as security and the opportunity to get a good education. It is in these countries that the largest flow of immigrants from the third world flows. Refugees from disadvantaged countries see this golden list as an opportunity to live with dignity.

Russia is not included in the top nine "happy countries". Firstly, because of the low standard of living of the middle class of the population, and secondly, because of the cultural failure in recent years.

In general, for each person happiness is something different. Some people are content with what little they have. Others have many benefits, but cannot enjoy them, as they are in an eternal search for something new and unusual. There are many happy people, it will not be possible to tell the story of each of them. We all have the opportunity to get into this list, for this you just need to find your happiness!