"People universally 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." Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love.

It's the maintaining part that is difficult I suppose. The constant mighty effort to stay afloat on top of it, lest the failure to do such would result in a horrible descend of despair - failure to keep up to standards of expectations expected of yourself, perhaps indirectly from the others. That's one of my constant struggle.