Hello Internet!
I hope everyone is having a fantastic week! If you’re living in the United States, I’m sure you’ve enjoyed a week full of fireworks and celebration. Since July 4th is on Wednesday there are celebrations the weekend before, the weekend after, and on the 4th. I love spending time with my family and watching fireworks as we celebrate American Independence! Nothing says America like explosions and grilling food in 100 degree weather. Anyway if you’re celebrating July 4th, I hope you do is safely. Drink plenty of water, use sunscreen, and be super careful if you’re setting off fireworks. Even roman candles and stuff like that can be quite hot. If you’re part of my international audience, I hope you enjoy your week as well. This week was very busy here on the website as we closed out June. Last Sunday I published a Weekly Blog about Summer Camp and Team Building; specifically my time at 4-H camp. On Wednesday I published a Poem titled Garden State which may be about flowers or may be about a totalitarian government depending on how you look at it. Then on Friday I published a continuation of my Dungeons and Dragons series, Battle In The Streets of Bishop Part 2. If you haven’t read any of those pieces, feel free to give them a read. I’d really appreciate it!
So leading up to writing this Weekly Blog I had a couple of topics floating around in my head. I actually wrote up an entire other Weekly Blog talking about me and some issues I’ve been having, but ultimately I decided to scrap it. It was kind of whiny and self indulgent and I didn’t really want to put out something that was mostly negative. I want to make the world and the internet a more positive place and that weekly blog wasn’t good for that reason. I know the world can look like a negative space, so that’s why I wanted to counteract that with this Weekly Blog instead. Now if you’re like me and are plugged into the news, you know that it can overwhelming at time. With things like mass shootings, natural disasters, political turmoil, and terrorism plastering every newspaper and news website from top to bottom, it’s easy to say that the world is getting worse and worse. It seems like violence is on the rise, political divides are widening, and the whole world is coming a part at the seams. Again, all that can be overwhelming. Many times I get off Twitter or tun off the television and I just want to wrap a blanket around myself and go to bed. But listen to me, it might seem like it’s getting worse, but the world is actually getting better.
I know that might seem hard to believe, especially after I just listed all of those bad things, but the truth is the world is getting better. Let me give you some stats to show you that the world is getting better. In January of this year, Bill Gates put out an editorial in Times Magazine talking about the same things I was talking about. He talked about how the news portrays a lot of negative things, but the world as a whole is actually getting better. Gates points out that child mortality rates for children under five is half of what it was in 1990, there has been a drastic decline in people living in extreme property, and that nowadays over 90% of children worldwide attend primary school (TIME). He also goes on to say that there are laws protecting gay people in 100 countries and that there is more and more women getting elected to public office around the world (TIME). Lastly Gates states that people are less likely to die in a car crash or on the job now compared to when our grandparents generation was our age (TIME). All positive things that are happening around the world. The world is getting better. To add more information to this, Psychology Today also put out a list of ways the world is getting better. They noted that 1) The literate percentage of the world’s population has risen from 36% in 1950 to 83% in 2010, 2) Homicides and death due to war “have been decreasing for centuries,” 3) Clean energy is getting cheaper to produce, 4) more and more countries are becoming democratic, and “Racist, sexist, and homophobic attitudes are becoming increasingly rare” (Psychology Today). That’s just five out of the ten ways the world is getting better that Psychology Today lists. There is a little bit of overlap with Bill Gates’ article, but if you want to read the other five, click the link and read it. All the data is there as well.
That’s just some global stats that you might not have known about. These aren’t flashy headlines that will get clicks on their website or sell newspapers, but this the real, positive news that’s happening around the world. So when the world has knocked you down and you feel like the whole world is standing on the edge of the cliff, remind yourself that things are getting better even if it’s not being reported on. I like to think of it this way. Anytime there is a car crash, the news reports on it. But they never report on all the people who got home safely from driving their car. That’s how a lot of the world works. And I’m not trying to blame the media or journalists or anything like that. I understand that their job is stressful and constant and that blood sells more than puff pieces. I understand. That just means everyone, as media consumers, needs to try a little harder to focus on the silver lining of situations and seek out the positive news. It’s out there. I also know that I’m talking about global stats and that doesn’t mean that each individual life is getting better. You might be having a hard time out there and that’s ok too. I know that you can overcome it and things will get better for you. Just hold on for a little bit longer and try to stay positive. Put positivity out into the world and positivity will find it’s way back to you, trust me.
That’s all for this week’s Weekly Blog. Hopefully you enjoyed it. If you did please give it a like and feel free to leave a comment down below. Leave some encouraging words or share an uplifting story. I’d love to hear it. Also if you have a compliment, criticism, complaint, or comment about this piece or anything on the website, leave it down there, and I will get to it. I guess I might as well share my social media pages while I have you here. We have a Twitter and a Facebook page if you want to follow the website there and see when new pieces are released. Ok, I think that’s enough for this week.
Again thank you for all your support and I hope you have a fantastic week!
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Healthy Place
https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/livingablissfullife/2016/03/how-to-stay-positive-in-a-negative-world
Allen The Writer 