Today is all about refusing to settle for the obvious answer. Heather Wake tells us about Pip, a foster cat told he'd lose a leg, and the foster mom fighting for a different ending you can help write. A Harvard happiness researcher makes the case that the good life might come from wanting less, not more. A family who won $54 million spent the next 16 years quietly taking care of their neighbors. And it turns out dry cleaning isn't what you think it is at all.
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Meet Pip, the foster cat with an Achilles injury who still loves to run. | ||
They said her injured foster cat would need amputation, but she refuses to give up on him | ||
Pip is a miracle waiting to happen. | ||
By Heather Wake | ||
While it’s true (and heartbreaking) that we can’t always shield our fur babies from the inevitable, there are times when a little voice tells us, “There’s a different way.” We should listen to that voice. | ||
For proud foster cat mom Bryn Murray of Connecticut’s Friends of Felines, that moment came when she met Pip. | ||
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Happiness researcher explains how making a ‘reverse bucket list’ can change your life | ||
Take life by the bucket. | ||
By Annie Reneau | ||
We live in a society that prizes ambition, celebrating goal-setting, and hustle culture as praiseworthy vehicles on the road to success. We also live in a society that associates successfully getting whatever our hearts desire with happiness. The formula we internalize from an early age is that desire + ambition + goal-setting + doing what it takes = a successful, happy life. | ||
But as Harvard University happiness researcher Arthur C. Brooks has found, in his studies as well as his own experience, that happiness doesn’t follow that formula. “It took me too long to figure this one out,” Brooks told podcast host Tim Ferriss, explaining why he uses a “reverse bucket list” to live a happier life. | ||
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Some signs remind us that love is never really gone. 😭🌈
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A family won $54M in the lottery, then quietly paid their town’s school lunch bill for 16 years | ||
“Such generosity is the mark of people with huge hearts.” | ||
By Adam Albright-Hanna | ||
An anonymous family in Saint-Michel, a town of about 3,200 in the Charente region of France, won €50 million on the EuroMillions lottery in 2009, or about $54 million. | ||
Their first move was to donate nearly €400,000 to the town’s “Housing for All” scheme and clear the debt of a local nursing home. | ||
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An Upworthiest Poll
Which household chore would you permanently outsource if money were no object?
Yesterday’s Results
In yesterday's issue, we shared Annie Reneau's story about a man who found a clever loophole to beat squatters at their own game.
And we asked: Which unwritten rule of society would you most like formally enforced? 46% of you chose let people exit before you enter, so consider this our unofficial petition to make it law.
Let people exit before you enter (46%)
Return your shopping cart (28%)
Headphones mean “do not talk to me” (8%)
The middle airplane seat gets both armrests (18%)
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Woman explains what dry cleaning actually is and people are legitimately shocked | ||
“They really take the buttons off of every shirt?” | ||
By Jacalyn Wetzel | ||
Have you ever wondered what happens at the dry cleaners? Or are you like me and just assumed the people at the dry cleaners were wizards and never questioned their magic? Turns out, dry cleaners aren’t magic and there’s actually a pretty interesting explanation of how they came to be and what they do. | ||
Melissa Pateras is known on Tiktok for her laundry knowledge. If she pops up on your For You Page, you’re officially on Laundrytok. Seriously, her ability to fold laundry is hypnotizing. This time, she created a video explaining what actually takes place at the dry cleaner and the Internet is aghast. | ||
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