Happiness: a stroke of luck?
Excerpt from 'Eat Pray Love'
Elizabeth Gilbert


…People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will, maybe descend on you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that is 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 are 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.