Studies over the years have revealed that monks are the happiest, calmest, and most focused people in the world. One monk’s brain produced the highest amounts of gamma waves—the waves associated with attention, memory, learning, and happiness—ever recorded. But many of us have embraced the belief that we can’t think or experience life like a monk unless we undergo the extreme rigors and sacrifice that we’ve heard monks endure.

Many believe that in order to reach a monk’s levels of inner calm, peace, empowerment and detachment from anxiety, pressure, and deep insecurity that keeps so many of us from thriving—we’d have to give up all our worldly possessions and walk away from our current way of life.