When you watch or listen to the news, how often are you left with a feeling of having received a balanced, well-rounded overview of recent events in the world? I can say for myself – rarely. Mostly I find myself feeling sad, disappointed, angry, dismayed, and many other hope-stealing emotions. If left unchecked, this accumulates into a sort of black hole, a self-reinforcing negativity cycle that is increasingly difficult to break where I slowly but surely slip closer to endorsing the negative connotation implied by the fatalistic statement that that’s real life.

I’ve always wondered why so many people seem to accept this view? After all, isn’t that too one-sided, too simplistic? Isn’t reality, the real-life, much richer and more nuanced than the flood of negativity we receive all too regularly from all too many news reports? I believe it is. Real life cannot mean just one single thing – any single thing, positive or negative. It contains multitudes.

Therefore, this Friday, I share with you a selection of events that “went right this week”, as the authors at the Positive News put it. This is not to promote naive or blind optimism. This is to try to balance the one-sidedly negative news reports and remind ourselves that real life contains much more, including, among others, many positive things. Link to the article: What went right this week

Keeping up the “Spreading the Word” tradition, every Friday, I hope to share with you an article I’ve read or a video I’ve seen and considered it to be inspiring or enlightening. I feel it is important to take good care not just of our physical but also of our mental well-being. Humans have always turned and returned to storytelling. My Fridays’ “Spreading the Word” articles are an online version of sharing worthwhile stories.   

keep exploring and storytelling!

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