51 Ways I Became The Happiest Person I Knew in 5 Minutes When I Let Go Of These 11 Things (read for an instant boost of happiness)

Illustration by Stephanie Davidson, IG: @asiwillit

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Author’s note: This article is made up of direct quotes from twenty-one different blog posts about how to be happy (sources are linked in the text and listed at the end). I added only punctuation, capitalization, and a few filler words. I hope it clarifies some things for you.

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Around a decade ago, a friend shared a book with me that changed my life. Before that, I just thought books were used to help prop up furniture that had become rickety over time. No way did I think books could hold the life’s work of geniuses that came before me.

When I realised this was possible, I read. And I mean I read a fuckload. To date I have 4,969 individual notes on my iPhone. It made me recognize how lucky I am to live on the only (known) planet to sustain life in the entire universe. It’s gone through some pretty difficult times (Asteroid impacts, ice ages, and volcano eruptions to name a few). And if our planet could go through adversity and come more prosperous on the other side, then so could I.

After doing some intense soul searching I had an epiphany- everything in your life is the way it is because you let it be. If you don’t like a situation you can either change the situation or change your mindset towards it. Something to think about: If you can read this, you’re one of the fortunate people who can read in the world, also you’re part of the 48% of the entire global population to have access to the internet.

Since then, I’ve managed to accomplish my goal of living a pretty damn good life. This is how I’ve done it.