Savor Happiness

Dear Pam,
My mother was a big fan of yours.  She passed away on January 9 of this year.  She was such a fun mom and she loved you sisters.  Having her as a mom was a privilege.  I miss her so much!
She had all your books and I even remember she hung produce in the refrigerator!  It must have been a suggestion in one of your books.  She was such a happy person and she always had time for us kids.  She loved her grandchildren too! 
She always wanted to please and I can’t remember a birthday party for me or my brother that wasn’t a big production and she went to all our activities at school.  All my friends loved to be at our house because it was fun. 
I was helping Dad go through her things and I found what she called her Happiness File.  It was a 3x5 filing drawer with a collection of bundled 3x5 cards, each bundle a year.  I haven’t been able to stop reading the cards!  It’s her collection of all the thoughts and things that made her happy and made her who she was.  There are funny quotes from us when we were little and quotes from my two children as well as those of you, Jesus, George Carlin and many more.  It is such a treasure.  She started writing them in 1986 and her bundles went through November 2011 through her illness.  Some bundles are smaller than others because she was not the type to do something every day.  I do know she always had 3x5s in her purse and was always writing on them stuff that struck her funny or made her think or inspired her.
I just wanted to thank you and your sister for being a happy part of her life.
Sincerely,
Trisha
Pam here: Trisha’s mom discovered the fun filling up 3x5 cards with happy thoughts, favorite restaurants, encouraging words; a record the inspiration, humor, love and beauty that surrounds us all the time.  In the Happiness File book, we wrote: What will inspire you once will re-inspire and what made you laugh will make you laugh again.  We encouraged our readers to keep 3x5 cards at hand as a simple way to record life, but we never dreamed how that idea would inspire and excite another generation!  To purchase The Happiness File audio book , PDF or download to your E-reader click here:  http://www.innerkiddies.com/shop/ scroll down to the book with the rainbow on it.  


I read the same book.  The first Happiness Chapter was in the book, SHE - Pen to Paradise on keeping your house clean.  I tried to follow the system and it worked for awhile.  Then I had another baby and all organization went out with the bath water.  But I do remember the happiness file.  I even covered mine with fake fur so I called it my Warm Fuzzy box.  Now I keep this stuff on my desktop.  My computer is littered with quotes and thoughts saved.  The interesting thing about the warm fuzzy box was on the darkest day I could read through the cards and it was like a trick birthday candle that relights itself.  I'm feeling down and I review the quotes I saved.  Or Facebook became my new way to share uplifting thoughts, feelings, and pictures.  Happiness needs to be savored.  Written down.  Retold over and over.  Happiness revisited gains strength in the retelling.  Funny stories were the main reason I used to read the Readers Digest.  Even when I was a kid I bought joke books with the school book club.  I looked for happiness and found it over and over.  I loved the book, Life's Uncertain - Eat Dessert First.  Over and over I searched for happiness.  I kept finding it but it seemed to slip through my fingers and vanish in a dark mist.  I didn't understand why I couldn't hang on to it.  I figured there was something wrong with me.  I was right.  After 10 years of counseling I finally understand that happiness is supposed to ebb and flow.  Days of joy alternate with days of sorrow.  If a person only feels one thing they loose the richness of life.  The disaster in the making is this only be around positive and happy people.  Only be happy.  One note.  I loose the luxury of a symphony, the haunting melody of an oboe balanced by the twittering of a flute.  I can choose happiness in a moment, sorrow may follow but happiness is not excluded.  Before counseling, I didn't know the beautiful richness of all the emotions swirl around all the time, I didn't know that I could listen to the melodies and pick out the high notes balanced against the low notes.  Counseling reconnected me to this rich symphony of emotion that I shut off to survive difficult times as a child.  I'm not a child any more.  I can appreciate a symphony.  I'm thankful that I chose to open my heart and enjoy the music of my soul.