Could you be a Repository of Happiness?

                                         Finally!  Got back to the easel last night.  Seeing this on screen makes me realize that it's NOT done.  But it makes me happy to have made a fresh start.

                     

I know Mother wanted me to be happy.  Unfortunately, her wish tended to sound like a demand: "Don't be sad," "Cheer up," "Get a grip!" 

And even though I finally figured out that being of good cheer can be a cheerful thing AND contribute to the happiness of  those around me, I've not paid much attention to sprinkling happy thoughts or deeds on others like fairy dust.

So then came a suggestion related to being a repository of happiness.

Start a collection.

What?!  I'm in de-cluttering mode! Downsizing! Attempting to get rid of junk and stuff. (Pinterest pictures don't count!  I've saved twenty plus thousand!)

On my first birthday, I had a collection started for me.  And while I enjoy it, it's kind of a burden.  At least 4 moving boxes worth of miniature figurines - mostly wood, mostly European, too numerous to display (think of the dust!).  At Christmas, I put out a few favorites, but tend to resent that they were really Mother's collection and 40 years after her passing, I'm still trying to make her happy.

Wendt and Kuhn angels are my favorites.

I confess, that I do occasionally buy new ones because they "fit."

So while I like looking at them, it does NOT make me happy to unwrap and re-wrap them during the busiest month of the year.

But something I do collect, in a lazy way, is quotes, aphorisms and words I want to be find again. Cutting and pasting is way easier than maintaining a scrapbook, although such "commonplace books" have existed since the early Middle Ages.

I have fourteen files of quotes backed up on my desktop computer.  There are too many for just one file... it would take forever to load! But a couple are big enough to be trusty repositories of good feelings... AND through the miracle of Word, searchable.

I am in a wonderful mood!! I don't know why but I always liked the saying

  that you don't need a reason to be happy, only a reason to be sad.   

                                                                           W. M.  Pinizzotto

 "When someone does something well, applaud! 

You will make two people happy." 

                                                                              Samuel Goldwyn

"The work will teach you how to do it."

                                                            Estonian Proverb

We collect data, things, people, ideas, profound experiences, never penetrating any of them... But there are other times. There are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

                                                                             James Carroll

                                                                           

What do you collect?

What do you share?