Happiness is:

The year 2007 was a transformative year for me. I spent many months feeling empty and alone. Beginning in July, while I was in Peru, I experienced a substantive change in the way I think, interact and live. Due to the living I have done since then --classes in the UK, moving in with Andrew, working 9-5, living with a lover, leaving a lover, coming home, praying -- I have soberly discovered happiness. I have thought about my life and why, almost suddenly, I love being alive. This is what I have come up with:

Now, for the third time since he had returned from the hospital that day, he opened the woman's book and read the brief inscription on the flyleaf. Written in ink, in German, in a small, hopelessly sincere handwriting were the words "Dear God, Life is hell.". . .Then, with far more zeal than he had done anything in weeks, he picked up a pencil stub and wrote down under the inscription, in English, "Fathers and Teachers, I ponder 'What is hell?' I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
-- J.D. Salinger, For Esme-With Love and Squalor

Learn to Love.
This above all else is necessary.

Next, pursue a childlike spirit. Run in the rain, have snowball fights, do a cannonball and make snow angels. Free yourself.

Forgive.

One forgives to the degree that one loves.
-- Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

"Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness."
-- Harold Kushner

Maintain groundless hope. Idealize. Imagine.

Love yourself. Inspire others to love themselves, too.

Life is short.
Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love truely. Laugh uncontrollably.



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