Friday, January 23, 2009

Pursuit of Happiness

I am almost done reading Eat, Pray, Love, a fascinating book by Elizabeth Gilbert about her travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia. I love this passage.....

"Some people tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments."

Just one of many interesting tidbits from the book. I typically don't sit around thinking deep thoughts about happiness, but this made sense to me.

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