15 Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy

A Horrifying Experience

Luminita D. Saviuc had a dreadful experience as a child. She confessed to her father that she had stolen some sweets – though she had not done so and was confessing only to shield her siblings. Her father put paper between her toes, doused it with gasoline and set it on fire. She couldn’t walk properly for months.

She decided to recount this incident for one reason: For many years before she revealed what she had endured, people told her that her ideas for helping others wouldn’t work for people who’d suffered a troubled childhood.

She wanted to show that her ideas were effective for her despite her traumatic history. She lived with an alcoholic, abusive father for more than a decade. She never received “love and nourishment” as a child. She had no confidence because she believed “self-worth” came from wealth, which she lacked. She lived in badly maintained, overcrowded orphanages with negligent supervisors. She faced ridicule as a teenager. Saviuc isn’t seeking sympathy. She wants to show that an awful past doesn’t determine your future. She says the past is the first of the 15 things you must give up to be happy.