INTRODUCTION

It was a peaceful and quiet night in our home. The kind you don’t want to remember. It was cold, and the sky was dark. As dark as the memories of those years.

My siblings and I were sitting in the middle of our living room, watching TV while my parents were somewhere in the house.

As we were sitting there, enjoying ourselves, we suddenly heard our father’s angry screaming voice, breaking the stillness.

“Who took them?!”

“There are candies missing, who took them?!”

“Who ate the candies?!”

Without saying a single word, I looked at one of my sisters, and from the look on her face I immediately knew she was the one who took them.

She looked horrified. We all did. Tears were running down our faces. We were all scared because we knew what was about to happen.

He then asked again, this time with an even angrier voice:

“Who took the damn candies? Answer me!”

Nobody dared to say a word.

“Who took them?!”

“If the person who took the candies won’t admit it, you will all get in big trouble! All of you, you hear me?! All of you!”

Without waiting for my father to ask the question one more time, with tears pouring down my face, I replied:

“I took them. I took the candies. It was me.”

I am not sure why exactly I decided to take on the blame, but I did. Maybe it was because I knew I could live with my pain but not with somebody else’s pain. I just didn’t want him to hurt my sister.

“I am sorry. I ate them. I ate them all. Please forgive me. Please!”

The moment I said it was me, he pulled me by my hair and started dragging me all the way to the bathroom.

I wasn’t even ten years old at that time, and I remember crying and screaming so loudly, begging him to let go of my hair, begging him for forgiveness.

“Please, Father, please. Let me go. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

He was silent, and it felt like he couldn’t hear a word I was saying.

He threw me on the bathroom floor and started screaming:

“Bring me the gasoline! Bring me the gasoline!”

“You will see what happens to those who steal from me! You will see what you get for lying to me! Just wait and see!”

I was so terrified, not knowing what he wanted the gasoline for.

My father used to do many strange things, and one of them was to bring gasoline into our apartment. In the middle of our living room, we had this gigantic box filled with bottles of gasoline. There were more than one hundred liters of gasoline in our home.

“Bring me the gasoline! Bring me the gasoline or I will burn you all.

Now!”

After he finished inserting paper between my toes, he began pouring gasoline on my toes and eventually lit me on fire.

I was horrified.

“Please, Father, please! I won’t do it again. Please stop! Please!”

Tears ran down my face and warmed my cheeks like never before, as the smell of smoke filled the air around my nostrils.

“It hurts, it hurts! Please help me! Please! Somebody please help me. Please . . .”

I was in so much pain, screaming and begging him to put out the fire, praying to God that my father would eventually feel sorry for me and stop.

Every second that fire was burning felt like an eternity to me. I really thought I wouldn’t make it out alive.

I am not sure how long I stood there with my toes on fire, but I do know that at one point I passed out.

I felt drained, exhausted. I couldn’t fight anymore and my body collapsed.

I wasn’t even taken to the hospital. It was my mom and my siblings who took care of me as best as they could, making sure I was safe.

After that incident, I couldn’t walk properly for months because my toes were damaged.

I remember my teachers and the kids at school asking me:

“Luminita, what is wrong with your feet? Why are you walking like this? Are you okay? What happened?”

To which, with a smile on my face, I would reply:

“Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I am okay. I am fine.”

But I wasn’t. Oh no, I wasn’t.

• • •

You may be wondering why I started a book on happiness with this story from my childhood. Here is my answer to you, my reader.

For more than five years, as a blogger, as the author behind PurposeFairy, and before starting to write this book, I received many criticisms and comments from people who felt that my ideas and tips for being happy in life were naive at best, and dangerously stupid at worst.

They felt like the ideas, tips, tools and recommendations I wrote about and offered didn’t apply to them and couldn’t help them. They proclaimed that they would only work on people who grew up “normal.” They argued that the stories and insights you hold within your hands right now, in these pages, didn’t have the power to positively transform people who had gone through horrible and traumatic experiences.

Well, I am here to tell you that what I have to share with you has worked for me. I say this as someone who:

Lived with an alcoholic and abusive father for more than twelve years.

Got deprived of love and nourishment throughout her entire childhood.

Used to believe that your self-worth came from your net worth and, since she never had enough of the latter, suffered from low self-esteem.

Got abused physically, mentally and emotionally for years and years.

Lived in crappy, crowded orphanages with mean, irresponsible caretakers.

Got ridiculed, labeled, judged and laughed at constantly all throughout her childhood and teenage years.

Struggled with giving up on, and letting go of, the person she loved the most, her former longtime boyfriend.

And much, much more.

I don’t say this because I want or need your sympathy (I don’t). I share it to elaborate the extent of the horrible things that I had to go through and to make a simple point: The story of your past doesn’t have to become the story of your life. Your past does not have to be your future.

The story of your past doesn’t have to become the story of your life.

Not only that, but you can also go on to have a happy life full of beauty, joy and fulfillment.

It’s absolutely possible, and in this book I share the lessons of that journey along with insights from ancient Eastern wisdom, contemporary spirituality and scientific research in positive psychology—all things which have been tremendously helpful to me and helped me with my healing.

It all worked for me. More importantly, it worked for many of my friends and thousands upon thousands of people who have read my blog. Therefore I suspect it might also work for you.

What you’re about to read is based on a post on my blog entitled “15 Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy,” which was shared on Facebook more than 1.2 million times. This book is an in-depth elaboration of everything I wrote about in that post, so you can gain the benefits of more details, examples and ideas, considered and explored from different angles and viewpoints.

Can I promise you 100 percent that everything in the book will work for you? No, I can’t promise that, but based on what I have seen and witnessed I do believe that its message will help you live a happier and better life.

It includes stories about my first horrible heartbreak, how I traveled from one country to another, leaving everything behind me, getting lost in order to be found, and how I managed to go from living a sad and hopeless life filled with drama and negativity to becoming the person that I am today: liberated, financially independent, self-expressed and free to travel the world to enjoy beautiful locations, from Miami Beach to Bali’s temples and rice fields. I’ve also included a few stories from readers who have reached out to me, sharing their own struggles and triumphs. I hope they will inspire you, as they have inspired me.

In a world where we are led to believe that happiness, wealth and success come from being better than everyone else, or having, doing and knowing more, this book comes to prove the exact opposite.

It is in giving up that we find happiness, our way back home and life’s missing pieces. So without further ado, I say, give up and be happy. Let’s begin.

It is in giving up that we find happiness, our way back home and life’s missing pieces.