“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, you strive for it, insist up on it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to practice 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 might 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 progress, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.” 

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love