Our next Tap-In guest, Maitri Libellule, makes such a difference in the happiness and health of people’s lives. She and I have collaborated to bring you this post — her beautiful writing accompanied by my photos. Maitri’s words inspire, illuminate, and uplift — so I decided to look up to capture imagery that would match her positive outlooks on life.
“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.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert
Excerpts from Maitri’s blog:
It is a day full of blessings. I say that not because it is a “perfect day,” none are in the world’s eyes. I say it because it is a profoundly beautiful day in so many ways and I am filled with gratitude for every single moment. I have come to “insist” on it as Gilbert wrote, meaning when I “fall off the horse I get back on and keep riding.” Sometimes it takes me hours to move forward again, sometimes only a very short time. I keep remembering what my mother said over and over when she was dying of cancer, a very difficult and debilitating cancer that lasted for five years. On the worst of the worst of the worst days if you called her she would say, “Every day’s a good day. It is what you make it.” Until she could no longer physically manage she got up, bathed, dressed, put on her makeup, made her bed, and had breakfast with her sister who lived upstairs and also had serious health challenges. They both had macular degeneration and my aunt was almost completely blind, and so was my mother toward the end. Neither could barely see and they managed in the most amazing way. I will never forget that as long as I live, and while I have my bad days — wishing I could be more like my mother — I hear her words in my head and try harder to remember that “Happiness is the consequence of personal effort.”
I have written about some of the personal challenges in my life, and yes they are in my past, and what I am trying most to do now is to imagine drawing a line in the sand and stepping over it. There was “before” and there is “after”; I am working at staying on the “after” side of the line. To carry that albatross around my neck (the circumstances and difficulties that were on the other side of the line), is to go through life never being light enough to see all the blessings, the happiness, and the joy that is there even on the hardest days.
And so why did I write all of this? I wrote it because there is far more joy and loveliness about my days than not. I wanted to encourage you to look at your life for the little things that bring you happiness and contentment, and when you do, when you open that door, you draw a line in the sand and step over it and work at continually moving forward, and yes, you will forget, but you try your best to get back on track as soon as possible, you make way, more and more, for better days, filled with gratitude.
Where you can find Maitri:
- her website and blog
- sign up for her inspirational newsletter
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