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Taking stock of your life requires some effort. You actually have to slow down. You have to take a step back. And you have to be really honest with yourself about how you are living and why. That process is hard for a lot of people. We don’t want to slow down… that seems weak. We don’t want to have to stop what we’re doing to think about it. And more than anything else being honest with ourselves sucks because it means we’re going to have to own up to our own shit. We’re going to have to look in the mirror and admit that in some aspects of our lives we’re off track.

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.