• Reading,  Wellbeing

    The 7 Secrets of Happiness: An Optimist’s Journey

    What an awesome title for a book! Happiness, optimism, and a journey, all in the same sentence. In the introduction, Gyles Brandreth writes about his personal journey looking for happiness, a journey that took him to different places around the world where he met some very remarkable people: the Pope’s exorcist at the Vatican, Buddhist monks in Cambodia, Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, Quentin Crisp in New York, and the Queen of Denmark in Copenhagen. But it was in Dublin where he discovered the 7 secrets of happiness thanks to the late Dr Anthony Clare, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College, widely known for his radio interviews: In the…

  • Reading,  Wellbeing

    Ikigai & Komorebi: Finding purpose & beautiful moments

    I’ve always been fascinated by Japan and anything Japanese. Yet, I am still to visit the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’, as Japan is often called in the West. Pronounced ‘Nihon’ or ‘Nippon’ in Japanese, the name of the country actually means ‘the origin of the sun’. Fairly recently, I’ve come across two Japanese words; since they do not have an equivalent in the English language, I have introduced them both to my vocabulary: komorebi and ikigai.   Komorebi   Komorebi is a noun, which translates to ‘sunlight filtered through the trees’. Such a beautiful and poetic word, isn’t it? Last week, I wrote about some of the activities that I…

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