My local library has a huge book sale twice per year in a warehouse. Wandering the aisles is entertaining and you never know what you will find. I bought and just finished reading “How Full is Your Bucket?” by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton. It is a short, easy to read book that uses a metaphor of a dipper and a bucket to help us increase our happiness and improve our relationships.
According to the book; “Each of us has an invisible bucket. It is constantly emptied or filled, depending on what others say or do to us. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When it is empty, we feel awful. Each of us also has an invisible dipper. When we use that dipper to fill other people’s bucket – by saying or doing things to increase their positive emotions – we also fill our own bucket. But when we use that dipper to dip from others’ buckets – by saying or doing things that decrease their positive emotions – we diminish ourselves.”