Matthieu Ricard,

www.mindandlife.org/dialogues/past-conferences/ml15/.

In the first half of the twentieth century, a great many people lived through the most horrific wars of all time as well as the worst economic depression, yet they were better off emotionally than many people today.

I made up my mind

Noise strongly affects our emotions, nervous systems, and physiology. I identify it as a major cause of anxiety.

Note that behaviors strongly associated with depression—reduced physical activity and human contact, overconsumption of processed food, a desire for endless distraction—are the very behaviors that more and more people now can indulge in, or are even forced to embrace by the nature of their sedentary indoor jobs.

“Our life can be greatly transformed by even a minimal change in how we manage our thoughts and perceive and interpret the world.

happiness “is determined more by the state of one’s mind than by one’s external conditions,

To state a complex change simply: our lives in the developed world have largely gone from hard and generally content to easy and often depressed.