July’s Good News: Stop ‘Losing Your Faith In Humanity’
I’m quite a busy man, but in my moments of solace, I procrastinate…. Stumbling from website to website, I fill vacant time. One of my favourite sites for this is 9gag, I’ve been tuned into the community for so long now, thoughts in my head are often formatted in memes and GIF’s… I’m more meme than man now. I’m a big fan of 9gag, but one thing I notice that happens a lot that really irks me, is the use of the phrase, ‘faith in humanity restored’. I see this phrase used day daily combined with stories of people doing good in the world, stories of men and women going beyond the call of duty in their lives, stories of people truly embracing life.
The world is often advertised as a dangerous and unhappy place. A place where organisations led by bond-esque villains rule our financial markets and criminal masterminds control our streets. A place where the economy is in peripheral free-fall and Donald Trump is the Republican Presidential nominee. Ok, hands up that is actually happening… but I digress.
What brought us to this point? How comes we need our ‘faith in humanity’ constantly validated?
Maybe it’s the 24 hours news stations that gather ‘breaking news’ around the clock to feed their studios and their, ‘good news is no news’, approach. Maybe it’s the Social networks and internet forums that can be used for such good; but often instead, fill our phones and laptops with tales of hate and fear. Maybe we’re just hard-wired to be pessimistic, but I truly hope that’s not the case!
With all of the wonderful people in the world, all of the great accomplishments we make as human beings, communities and countries; I’m going to take this blog to debunk the phrase, ‘faith in humanity restored’. I’m going to take a look at just a few snippets of the great news and amazing accomplishments that have happened in the month of July.
Remember the Ice bucket challenge, where we all through buckets of water over our heads? Stats from Facebook and The ALS Association show that the viral videos raised $115 million and saw 17 million people upload their good deeds to Facebook. The money raised from this has led to a new breakthrough in research that could herald in further treatments and one day lead to a cure.
In the business world; billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, Tony Stark/Elon Musk is leading the revolution in clean-tech. His ‘master plan’, announced this month, looks to the future of electric vehicles; from consumer cars to haulage trucks. Elon’s dream is that Tesla will build these new vehicles and then you’ll charge them using solar power provided by Solar City; theoretically quenching our thirst for oil. Hopefully the numbers add up and the business case stands the test of time!
In the field of science and technology, Solar Impulse 2 has just completed a round the world flight, powered entirely by the Sun. Spending 23 days in the air, the plane travelled 40,000km, using no fossil fuel at all. The longest leg taking place over the Pacific ocean, where 4,000 miles stood between the pilots and land, you don’t want a solar eclipse then.… An amazing feet of human achievement.
Criminals are bad people, right? We’re taught from an early age that the police are the goodies and the criminals are the baddies… But life is not so black and white in practice. Prisoners locked in a cell in a Texan courthouse, saw their prison guard slump in his chair after losing consciousness. Breaking out from their holding cell, they quickly worked to stabilise the guard and called for help down the corridor, their actions have been credited with saving the mans life.
Watch the video: Here
Then there’s the mother of three who adopted her best friends kids, after her best friend passed away. The wrongly convicted man, who at 17 was sentenced to 28 years in jail, now working as a New York lawyer after being exonerated a decade later. The construction worker who is brightening up kid’s days at Memorial Children’s Hospital by moving a ‘Where’s Wally’ cut out around the construction site next door. And there are many more, (millions more), stories like this to be found each month.
The crux of this all, in my humble opinion, is that it’s a pretty good world. A fact we often too easily forget. It’s a world where medical science is improving our lives. A world where social-entrepreneurs outweigh corporate raiders and disingenuous bankers. A world where charity is more valued than selfishness. A world where friends take care of friends, family take care of family and communities take care of communities.
We often lose sight of this and in a world fuelled by negative stories, we can forgive ourselves for feeling lost and helpless. But we shouldn’t feel that way, life is full of stories of altruism and good deeds.
Stop losing your faith in humanity.
