The concept of happiness has long perplexed the human mind. From the pre-Socratics down to the modern thinkers, happiness, though a simple thought, had created complex systems of beliefs and ideals. Unknowingly, as man tries to pursue happiness and know its very nature, he becomes unhappy as he continues his sojourn. The more man becomes entangled with the trivialities of life, the more unhappiness reigns over him. Chade-Meng Tan, from Google thought of it in the same way. He observed how his colleagues were becoming stressed out and unhappy at work, and because of it he persuaded his bosses about his plan.
Meng later on introduced to the Google a course that teaches "employees mindfulness skills to enhance emotional intelligence and promote wellbeing."
In 2014 at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, Meng had a talk dubbed as "Make Yourself the Happiest Person on Earth." On the said event, Meng shared a three-step advice on how to make yourself happy, and cnn called it 'Google's algorithm for happiness'. Here below are the three simple steps in making yourself the happiest person on earth.
Calm your mind
Meng's piece of advice is very easy to do and yet may require certain degree of focus to practice. According to him a collective breathing exercise would help calm the mind while taking a pause during a busy day. For skeptics, this practice has long been advised by monks, even the "world's hapiest man," Matthieu Ricard has written a book about it.
Log moments of joy
Have you noticed that negative things or events stick all throughout the day compared to positive ones? And for that reason, Meng advised us that in order to feel bliss, we need to hold on those moments of joy. It is through our conscious recognition of it, that we are actually increasing the chances of us having a great day overall. The concept of joys and happy thoughts in a way serves as a counterbalance or even outweighs our negative thoughts, "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative."
Wish other people to be happy
Mengs concept of happiness or gaining it does not only end with us, for it should envelop others. Here comes the altruistic mentality and the idea of the more you give the more you get in return. Meng claims that "kindness is a sustainable source of happiness."
All of us are not immune to sadness and other negative emotions, and what Meng just presented are the simple ways in order to counter such negative thoughts. There are many ways to fight sadness, and it so happened that Meng of Google, presented to us the cheapest and simplest method of countering it.
