No Effort Is Ever Wasted

On this path no effort is ever wasted, no gain is reversed; even a little of this practice will shelter you from great sorrow.
The Bhagavad Gita 2:40

This passage from the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t mean that we won’t ever have great sorrow or difficulties in our lives, because that happens in this human existence. What it does mean is that when we do have challenges, whatever they are, with a strong practice we can navigate through them. We act from a place of peace and wisdom rather than a place of fear or anxiety. I always look to the Dalai Lama and what he had to live through, but he is a joyful person. He wrote a book on joy with his friend Desmond Tutu, who also lived a difficult life in apartheid South Africa. 
We may have those days when we think we want to quit. We may have those days when it seems too hard to have the self-discipline to meditate regularly or to pay attention to what is the right thing to do or say. We may feel like we're not making progress with our meditation. But the more we practice, the easier it is to do what we know we should do. 
Whenever you have those days remember this— "no effort is ever wasted."