A point I’ve made several times in our subscription newsletter is that most people give their attention to the negative things in the world and pass right over the good things. If you think about that for just a moment, it’s easy to understand why people are more disturbed and unhappy than they need to be.

In other words, we make ourselves far more miserable than is justified by the actual facts.

So, I have a challenge for you (one that I make to myself from time to time as well): Go through a day – one day only – and pay attention to all the good things you see.

I am quite sure that ignoring every bad thing for just one day won’t kill you. After all, you give those things your full attention every other day.

So, I challenge you to spend just one day looking at the good and looking past the bad.

Some Help Getting Started

To help you get into the right frame of mind, here’s a short clip from the movie Love Actually. Please take the one minute or so required to watch it.

Love actually IS all around. We see it every day. The problem is that we don’t focus on it.

Cooperation is even more common. Think about how few auto accidents there are. With all those thousands of cars driving at high speeds, stopping, starting, and changing lanes, it’s rather miraculous that there aren’t many more accidents. And the reason that there aren’t is that nearly all of us cooperate really well, nearly all of the time.

Think about the things we usually complain about. They are times when cooperation or some other type of basic goodness breaks down.

We expect cooperation, consideration, and basic responsibility so much that we half freak out when it fails.

If You Try…

If you try to see the good, you’ll find it everywhere.

I drive by a homeless man who goes out of his way to help other homeless guys and to feed animals. I know a businessman who goes far out of his way to help friends, not wishing any kind of repayment. I know many women who are pleased to help their families, many men who are pleased to stop and help someone in trouble, and so on.

If you look for it, goodness and decency are actually everywhere.

So, for just one day, I challenge you to go out and see the good in the world. Pick your day, watch that clip again, then go out and focus your eyes on the good.

I think you’ll get a lot out of it.

Paul Rosenberg
FreemansPerspective.com