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2 Core Beliefs About Happiness That Might Make You Deeply Depressed

Do you hold these beliefs about happiness? They might be making you miserable (or, worse) without you even knowing it.

Matt Gangloff
6 min readDec 30, 2021
Photo by Dylan Sauerwein on Unsplash

There’s a parasite called the Hairworm, Latin name Spinochordodes Tellinii, that brainwashes its grasshopper host into killing itself.

When the Hairworm reaches maturity, it secretes a chemical that convinces the grasshopper to dive into the water where the parasite, now three times longer than its host, bursts out of its thorax and swims off to find a mate.

It’s the stuff of nightmares.

But you know what’s more terrifying?

Being infected by a thought.

A parasitic thought doesn’t even need a physical body. It’s born in the minds of other people, it spreads through the air, camouflaged as harmless or even helpful wisdom that you accept willingly, blind to its true intent, and when you do, it burrows in through your ears, makes a nest in your brain and over time, little by little, it eats you alive.

Can thoughts kill you? Maybe not. But they can convince you to kill yourself. They can and they do. There are parasitic thoughts that make people so depressed that it drives them to suicide.

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Matt Gangloff
Matt Gangloff

Written by Matt Gangloff

I teach the how-to’s of Post-Traumatic Growth: How to heal and grow, find a new mission, become your best self and build a meaningful life. www.mattgangloff.com

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