happiness loves company: from the archives

I think of my community in a broad sense.

It is anywhere with in a forty minute drive I guess….maybe beyond that.

It is the people I see shopping in my Studio, at Mansours or Thirty Church.

It is my online community at the studio

It is the people I sit on community committees with.

It is people who contribute, who give back to their community.

It turns out my community is more about people than place.

The town next door is part of my community.

The road to Parrsboro is part of my community.

What goes on in these places can matter to me

as much as what is happening on Church Street.

I love it that my studio is fifteen minutes from  a Unesco World Heritage site.

That is an amazing thing.

300 Million years ago something was happening here.

Imagine that.

Then think about how small you are in the scheme of things.

You cannot feel self important and look up at those cliffs.

We might be small in one sense but there is no room

to think small anymore.

You can think local.

You can think about the importance of independents.

But you cannot think small because the world is too big and too vast.

There are too many ideas that are easy to access now.

We can all do so much more because there are so many tools.

You can produce a movie.

Make a music video.

Just with your phone.

You can sell to China. It is possible.

Imagine that.

The possibilities.

The limits that I feel are mostly my own. That might be true for others too,

Our small local economy is part of something bigger.

I have learned this from my work.

This morning I had a note from a woman on the west coast of Ireland

about my last blog post. It resonated with her an ocean away.

I have learned from doing business here in this community.

People come from away because they like it here. They like it HERE.

Years ago watching  a little black and white tv in my parent’s mobile home

I saw Katherine Hepburn starring in a movie and she said, “The key to happiness kid is wanting what you have.”

To want it you have to find some ways to appreciate it.

You have to seek out the people and things you can appreciate,

You have to ignore the idea that to be hopeful is to be foolish because the nay sayers and fun suckers want you to believe that so you’ll join them.

Misery loves company but so does happiness.

Happiness loves company too.

Republished post from 2016