The Goods / Mar 22, 2017

9 min readMar 24, 2017

Hello there Spring!

Oh yes, it’s that time of year. Time to start fresh.

It feels great to open up the windows, triage our clothes (donate some), and start something new. Like a passion project, or a new habit.

Maybe you’ve wanted to learn the ukulele. Maybe you’ll commit to walking outside more often. Or maybe you’ll start drawing art nouveau images of seasonal damsels (like Spring pictured above, circa 1900 by artist, Alphonse Mucha.)

Our passion is this weekly email. The more we create and share, the more we’re solidifying our purpose and our overall happiness. And it feels great.

This week on tap, we’ve got a candle-lit night, happiness and water.

—

**correction: Last week, when we mentioned the WWF, we had mistakenly referred to it as the World Wildlife Foundation. The actual name of this kickass organization (in Canada and the U.S.) is the World Wildlife Fund. Oops.

Guess who’s turning 10 years old?

Before we bust out the candles for this story, can you guess who else is turning 10 this year…

It was released on June 29, 2007 by Apple as an entirely new product. Some were skeptical of its usefulness. In case you can’t remember, it was the iPhone. Ten. Years. Ago. Already.

Now for the real (meaningful) party, Earth Hour is also turning 10 this Saturday. Happy bday kiddo 🎉!

What is that again?

The objective of Earth Hour (EH) is to turn off all our lights for one hour, this Saturday, March 25 at 8:30pm (wherever you are in the world.)

EH is an initiative backed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as a reminder for us to re-think our energy needs, and to spread the good word about climate change. And what better way to grab the world’s attention than turning off the blinking lights of the Eiffel Tower?

It humbly started off in Sydney, Australia back in 2007 as a single event. Ten years on, EH has spread to over 7,000 cities across the globe into what has become the world’s largest-ever grassroots movement with light-off events happening in 172 countries and territories. In 2016, even the International Space Station turned its lights off.

The good kind of blackout

Not only does no lights on mean lower energy consumption (which is great), it also demonstrates the power in the cumulative efforts of many. As mentioned in WWF’s Earth Hour 2016 Report, “No one causes climate change in isolation and no one can tackle it alone. Changing climate change requires innovation in ambition, vision and collaboration.”

We’re big fans of that last part, collaboration. It often takes one person to start something new and innovative, but what’s most important is for someone else to also believe in it. [This is best explained in this week’s good secret link]

Throw enough mud at a wall…

And eventually something is going to stick.

It takes courage to follow and motivate others to follow. That’s why this upcoming Saturday, even if you unable to go lights out, be sure to encourage others to do so. Most advertisers would agree, word of mouth (even digitally) is the most effective way to spread a message.

The more we’re exposed to the idea of climate change (like climate-friendly policies and the transition to renewable energy sources), the easier it will be for us, as a global society, to embrace the big ideas that will get us to a fully sustainable future.

Really?

Yup. In a 2011 report, the WWF outlined how planet earth can be 100-percent renewable energy by 2050 (link at the end of this email.) It’s been a few weeks now that we mention the WWF, and honestly, this NGO is stacking up some serious points in our good books. We’d much prefer hearing more about their initiatives in the daily news as opposed to the IPO of the week. Guess that’s why we do what we do ;)

This EH, we’ll be checking out this concert in Montreal. If you’re in town, see you there 🌎⏳

—

Denmark was de-throned this past Monday. It is no longer the happiest country in the world :(

To be fair though, finishing 2nd place — only 0.02 off Norway’s top happiness score — ain’t that bad. We’re certain that the Danes all are still quite hygge (Danish for cozy) :)

TBH, crowning a country as the happiest in the world is kinda silly. For starters, the top five nations in the 2017 World Happiness Report were separated by only 0.07 points. Plus, we’re certain that life in general is just grand in all those places.

We believe that, regardless of how your fellow countrymen/women’s level of happy is indexed, real happiness starts at the most basic level. With you.

Ah, the greatest question of all

It’s a timeless question that has been pondered by great minds for millennia: what is happiness?

Thanks to social psychologist, Dr. Jonathan Haidt, we might be a little closer to the answer. His 2006 book, The Happiness Hypothesis, has attempted to demystify what it takes to bring us closer to being happy.

Teaser alert: we did the reading for you, and we’re going to share his findings on how to be happy. (Keep in mind Haidt’s book is over 240 pages of thorough psychological analysis, so we’ll give it our best shot.)

At its core, happiness comes from between. Go on…

As Haidt explains, “people are like plants. […] You can’t a fix a plant; you can only give it right conditions — water, sun, and soil — and then wait. It will do the rest.”

He goes on to explain that the best conditions for humans to be happy are love and work. Love because we are inherently ultrasocial creatures, so we need lots of human attachments. And work because it allows us to pursue goals, stay engaged and find moments of flow.

People who see their work as a way to contribute to something greater than themselves are generally quite happy. They’re the type of person who “would continue to work, perhaps even without pay.” Going a little deeper, they make the most of their inherent strengths everyday at work. These are the folks who refer to their work as their “calling.”

The right type of love and work allow us to be drawn outside of ourselves and become further connected with others and with projects bigger than ourselves.

So, to be happy is to get the “between” part right. It means we should be aiming to get the right relationships between us and others, between us and our work, and between us and something the larger than us. In practice, we can admit that this weekly email is our “larger than us” project.

If you have a chance, pick it up Haidt’s book. Honestly, it’s a great read. Very well-written and very relatable.

In the meantime, brace yourselves for the Norwegian marketing and brand machine to be selling us all on its Northern Lights. (Apparently, the best in the world 🌠)

—

Quick history lesson: on this day in 1993, the United Nations’ General Assembly voted to make March 22, World Water Day. Party💧

According to UN Water (the branch of the UN leading the initiative), the spirit of the day is to bring attention to the world’s water crisis and to support safe, clean water projects for those who need it most.

You might not realize it, but access to clean water is one of the best ways to eradicate poverty. After all, it’s one of the pillars keeping us human animals alive and, most importantly, healthy. For over 600 million people on Earth, clean water is the difference between life and death.

Water really does change everything.

So to celebrate the day, we’re happy to share the story of a guy named Scott.

Back in the day, he was promoting nightclubs, partying with models, and drinking Goose. But after several years of this “lifestyle”, the buzz wore off. Luckily, his heart brought him into another direction. Towards charity.

Back in his late-20s, he decided he needed to do something more fulfilling with his life. So he spent over a year volunteering as a photojournalist for Mercy Ships — a charity that docks hospital ships in ports across the developing world providing free health services, like surgery, to those who can’t afford it. (What a beautiful idea, we know.)

During his stay in places like Liberia, he took over 60,000 photographs of people of all ages suffering from life-altering, benign tumors that were removed via relatively inexpensive (by our standards) operations.

To get a better understanding (visually) of what he documented, on Scott’s blog, you can see what Hawa and Joseph went through. (Warning though, these images are not for everyone. We teared up at the beauty and power of these before and after images and the personal stories behind them. Their smiles are magical.)

The Yellow Jerrycan

Scott’s volunteering efforts exposed him to the very real consequences of dirty water: sickness and disease. The vast majority of which are preventable. If only they had access to clean water.

The experience profoundly changed his life. As a result, he founded charity: water.

What is most awesome about c:w is how they re-thought the charity business model.

In a nutshell, 100% of public donations (that’s you and us), are directly applied to the various water projects like digging wells and training for upkeep and maintenance. Meanwhile, the organization’s costs (like rent, salaries, data servers, etc.) are funded by another stream of nearly 100 private donors (the really wealthy kind, like Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey.)

What is also pure greatness about c:w is their level of transparency. All completed projects are tagged on Google Maps with GPS coordinates and photos of the well their donors helped fund. In fact, back in 2011, we raised over $5,000 for c:w and helped fund a well in Malawi and another in Ethiopia.

Scott’s story is great because his story has influenced so many other stories. And although there are dozens of water-related charities and NGOs, none have made as much of a splash (ha!) as charity: water has. They’ve made water (and charity) sexy.

To date, charity: water has helped fund nearly 23,000 water projects which bring clean water to over 7 million people, in 24 countries.

So as you fill up your 8oz glass (8 times today as per Doc’s recommendation) with water, don’t forget to smile. You’ve never really had to think about the safety of the water you consume.

Smile also because you now know that some great people are dedicating their lives to ensure that every person on Earth has access to clean water.

—

Thanks for reading friends!

Until next week, hit reply share your larger than you project with us..

Lastly, our GIFt to you, in the name of cute, happy International Puppy Day! (That’s tomo yo.)