To live well myself is my first and essential contribution to the well-being of all mankind and to the fulfillment of man’s collective destiny. If I do not live happily myself how can I help anyone else to be happy, or free, or wise? Yet to seek happiness is not to live happily. Perhaps it is more true to say that one finds happiness by not seeking it. The wisdom that teaches us deliberately to restrain our desire for happiness enables us to discover that we are already happy without realizing the fact.
To live well myself means for me to know and appreciate something of the secret, the mystery in myself…
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
And ... living happily in the midst of the everyday perhaps requires a rhythm of prayer, meditation and study that has to be fought for in the midst of the busyiness of our contemporary lives. It's hard to imagine that happiness comes through struggle but perhaps it does.
