Sometimes, just sometimes, something happens that catches you off guard and make your day. As though the world was saying to you "Hey, here's a surprise, if you're quick enough to notice it." and in this situation it was a friend of mine would recently become a grandfather telling me about the child's name. It wasn't the name that caught my eye, it was the expression on his face. Absolute and complete joy!
I swear the guy lost 20 years in a split second and it was astounding to see this just instantaneously happen. To know that this was a regular at the end around the world millions of times a day doesn't matter. Nothing could discount this experience. I don't even know if he realized intellectually just how much joy he was feeling, and I guess it doesn't matter.
So the next time someone tells you or expresses an opinion that nothing good ever happens in the modern world or that everything is negative I want you to think about this short little post and video. It reminds us all that good things are constantly happening. We must however be open to listening for them. They are there, taking a multitude of forms, some short some long.
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| Hypothetical site, not real. |
Can you imagine if there was an online service similar to Facebook but focused on posting positive or inspirational stories and events. That would be pretty cool. There probably is, somewhere on the vast Internet and if not, which is something I find highly unlikely, we must find out why. Maybe it's just the simple fact that we are conditioned on an evolutionary level to look for negative things first. It is better to suspect that there might be something hiding in the bush, then not be aware of it in the first place. Regardless however, such a service putting a positive angle on events would be a welcome and needed commodity. ("Commodity" is not the word I would use, but it is the word that came to mind as I write this text.)
In the video below, it is easy to see how pleasantly I was blown away by my friends expression as he told me about his new relative. I wish I had been able to get a photograph of his face. I am really not understating it when I say that he became 20 years younger. These really are the things we need to retrain our modern brains to pay attention to. That is to look for positive experiences, rather than the default negative.
In the past I know that various people and companies have tried to start "Good News Networks" and that it is always been an uphill battle. I think the idea would be much easier to address if one would start small. That is pay attention to the small things that occur in life, then progressed slowly, up the ladder until you can start something like a positive stories network, or organization with the same goals in mind. The modern person has been conditioned, not to look for the uplifting things and therefore we have many negative behaviours to deal with and resolve before we can tackle the big projects. However as any of my readers know, I am an optimist and I keep seeing the beauty and life intermingled with a little bit of magic.
Feel free to start a competition with your friends to see who can come up with the most positive experience of the week. It may sound a little corny, but you never know, such a simple start may ultimately lead to a big idea.
So there you have it, my retelling of a short little experience which happened to me. It might be in short but it sure wasn't insignificant for either the grandfather or myself. Things are always happening in the world and it is not always one-sided.
Have a great day Patrick
** NOTE: The picture "Welcome to Good News" is from the service Ideogram AI. As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service"
and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed
by the public. However before any reuse, please review fully their
terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.
The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.
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