I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe 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. (Not me. I won't 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 when when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.
Elizabeth Gilbert / Eat, Pray, Love
8 comments:
you look pretty / happy
There's some wisdom in not sitting idle, waiting for happiness to happen, but at the same time, I wouldn't turn the world upside down to find it either.
p.s. don't eat the beads all at once
:)
soul holding tight---good attainments---striving---sounds like a prosperous neighborhood to me, keeping out the outsiders, the poor leaky underachievers--Ms Gilbert can go jump in the lake---Katy
It's such a coincidence ~ when I saw your blog just now I said "Chihuly!"
And yes, I understand there is a piece in front of the Legion of Honor.
What a beautiful quote. And so true. And what happened to the photo of you with the candy necklace? And next time you get Good-n-plenty, save some for me!!!
nice photo! At first I thought it was a big outdoor sculpture--folk art.
Trying to remember the movie we saw where a woman collects shiny things and has a room full of them....
So much striving--I'm tired.
So much striving--I'm tired.
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