“Never try to do anything that is outside of who you are. A forced smile is a sign of what feels wrong in your heart, so recognize it when it happens. Living a lie will reduce you to one.” ― Ashly Lorenzana

"Bliss is a deep sense of being present, of doing what you absolutely must do to be yourself. If you can hang on to that, you are on the edge of the transcendent already. You may not have any money, but it doesn't matter. When I came back from my student years in Germany and Paris, it was three weeks before the Wall Street crash in 1929, and I didn't have a job for five years. And, fortunately for me, there was no welfare. I had nothing to do but sit in Woodstock and read and figure out where my bliss lay. There I was, on the edge of excitement all the time.

So, what I've told my students is this: follow your bliss. You'll have moments when you experience bliss. And when that goes away, what happens to it? Just stay with it, and there's more security in that than in finding out where the money is going to come from next year. For years I've watched this whole business of young people deciding on their careers. There are only two attitudes: one is to follow your bliss; and the other is to read the projections as to where the money is going to be when you graduate. Well, it changes so fast. This year it's computer work; next year it's dentistry, and so on. And no matter what the young person decides he or she gets going, it will have changed. But if they have found where the center of their real bliss is, they can have it. You may not have money, but you'll have your bliss.

Your bliss can guide you to that transcendent mystery, because bliss is the welling up of the energy of the transcendent wisdom within you. So when the bliss cuts off, you know that you've cut off the welling up; try to find it again. And that will be your Hermes guide, the dog that can follow the invisible trail for you. And that's the way it is. One works out one's own myth that way.

You can get some clues from earlier traditions. But they have to be taken as clues. As many a wise man has said, "You can't wear another person's hat." So when people get excited about the Orient and begin putting on turbans and saris, what they've gotten caught in is the folk aspect of the wisdom that they need. You've got to find the wisdom, not the clothing of it. Through these trappings, the myths of other cultures, you can come to a wisdom that you've then got to translate into your own. The whole problem is to turn these mythologies into your own.

What I've found is that any mythic tradition can be translated into your life, if it's been put into you. And it's a good thing to hang onto the myth that was put in when you were a child, because it is there whether you want it there or not. What you have to do is translate that myth into its eloquence, not just into the literacy. You have to learn to hear its song."

- Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss

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  Bernhard Guenther continued:
  "[...] Here is a story that seems to me to embody the essential image of living one's life, finding it and having the courage to pursue it. It comes from an Arthurian romance, La Queste del Saint Graal, by an anonymous thirteenth-century monk.
  
  There's a moment there in Arthur's banquet hall when all the knights are assembled around the Round Table. Arthur would not let anyone start to eat until an adventure had occurred. Well, in those days adventures were rather normal, so people didn't go hungry for long.
  
  They were waiting for this day's adventure, and it did indeed occur. The Holy Grail showed itself to the assembled knights - not in its full glory but covered with a great radiant cloth. Then it withdrew. All were left ravished, sitting there in awe.
  
  Finally, Gawain, Arthur's nephew, stood up and said, "I propose a vow to this company, that we should all go in quest of that Grail to behold it unveiled."
  
  Now we come to the text that interested me. The text reads, "They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the Forest Adventurous at that point which he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no way or path."
  
  You enter the forest at the darkest point where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else's path; each human being is a unique phenomenon. 
  
  The idea is to find your own pathway to bliss."