Happiness
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
There’s been many thoughts and attempts in updating this blog, but there’s a lot going in my life that I need to fully digest before I am willing to jot it into words. I know that this is where I should feel as safe as i can and be as transparent as possible, but when I go through the entire range of emotions within a 90-minute duration, something can be said in the need to attain greater control of my self. (There’s always twitter!)
Until then, I shall leave this with you:
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. 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.
Elizabeth Gilbert,
Eat, Pray, Love
Thursday, 16 July 2009 at 5:06
Very wise words. Thank you my friend for sharing them.
Saturday, 18 July 2009 at 3:05
Eat, Ahem, Love.
I support everything she says – with the exception of the religious aspect. That leaves just so much room for arguments which stands in contrast to what she promotes – love. I realize she refers to her “guru”, which makes it sound less religious and yet, the idea of devoting yourself to a single belief contradicts a multi-facetted approach of happiness.
And hey, for your own sake – what’s wrong with experiencing your whole range of emotions within 90 minutes? Most people won’t have the same luck in 90 days!
I love that you used “my self” and not “myself”.
Eat, Ahem, Love.
Saturday, 18 July 2009 at 16:23
She talked about that in the book, actually. That she’s not referring to any one religion or God, but just a sense of something higher.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009 at 20:36
[...] distinctively remember the hopelessness I had felt when I posted Happiness a few months ago. When people would casually ask me “How are you?”, it was hard not to [...]