Just last week I wrote up an article about how social media, for all its perks and sharing power, is incredibly easy to get overwhelmed by, in a bad way. About two days after typing that article up, a friend sent me a link to a post consisting of a lot of good things that have happened over the course of this year. My mood went from ten to one hundred as I scrolled down the blessedly long list. It got me thinking about the ways in which news that gets the most coverage tends to lean more heavily on the negative side of the scale. It's such a disservice to people not to share the wonderfully positive things that are happening in the world around them. Of course, that does not mean that bad news doesn't exist, and we shouldn't bury our heads in the sand, but sharing how we affect each other positively makes for a happier mind and a reprieve from the collective hopelessness we as a society seem to be feeling more and more often. Kindness, innovation, compassion, empathy; all these things still exist within our world, and we should celebrate them instead of drowning them under the weight of conflicts and chaos and unhappiness.

There are, of course, larger, more headline-worthy pieces of good news out there, but I'd like to share with you a news platform called Good News Network that aims to share positive stories from around the world. It's been sharing positive news since 1997 as "an antidote to the barrage of negativity experienced in the mainstream media." It's such a fabulous idea to collect and spread the good news to people, and I'm actually pretty put out that I had no idea this platform existed until yesterday. There's an app you can download so that you can receive good news on the go, or you can follow the network on social media. Regardless, I would highly recommend checking them out because we all could use more positive news in our lives.

Articles on the website can range from sweet to compassionate to inspirational to absolutely heartwarming. How can you feel bad when you hear about a man in Buffalo, New York who gives ice cream to kids around there for free if they answer a math or history question? There's been a good deal of discussion over controversies and safety regarding the Summer Olympics, but it's nice to know that the unused and leftover food from the Olympic village will be cooked and given to the poor. It's nice knowing that a man at a Target around a week ago was escorting people to their cars with his umbrella to help them stay dry from a downpour. These aren't big things that are happening in the world. They're just day-to-day bits of kindness, random or planned. It's good news and it's such a relief to read and watch. It inspires me to go out and perform acts of kindness myself. There is nothing negative that can come from sharing these positive stories.

I hope, at least for a moment, these stories make you smile.