“Don’t fight the darkness. Don’t even worry about the darkness. Turn on the light and the darkness goes.”
— David Lynch
Dear Friends,
Happy (belated) New Year!
Last week I was driving along the Schuykill River towards Philadelphia when I noticed how beautiful the frozen river looked. I stopped the car, captured some photos on my phone, and then sat back in my warm car with a cup of hot coffee to edit them. In that moment, I felt genuinely uplifted.
A little while later, as I walked from the carpark to my appointment, my mood shifted. I saw a homeless man in rags and a blanket, sitting on a sidewalk vent, with ice clinging to his eyelashes and mustache. It was a sad sight.
The cold bit at every turn; each step through the city streets felt like entering a wind tunnel, and the thermometer read just 9 degrees. If I was this cold, what must he have been feeling?
Unlike other times when sadness might drive me to retreat, this time my good mood spurred me into action. I thought about what I could do beyond offering the man a hot coffee and a meal. It turns out we can all do our bit: collecting clothes and blankets, gathering canned food (for humans and pets alike), and volunteering at shelters.
I think my joy at noticing beauty and my time spent creating something that made me happy contributed to a sense of hope and activism that propelled me forward and into looking at what I was able to do to help a person who was struggling.
It made me think that attending to our own happiness is the jumping off point to helping others. People who are happy and flourishing themselves are the ones who help others. We can all contribute in ways small and large. We just need to see the possibilities and to be motivated to act. This is the “why” of SeeingHappy. That is what SeeingHappy wants to inspire.
We hope that by focusing on the good in our everyday lives we are building hope, positivity, and resilience in our lives. It is that hope, positivity, and resilience that enables us to be part of the solutions in the world. We see possibilities, we believe we can make a difference, and we keep on trying to find answers.
Thank you to all our subscribers! We are evolving and we hope you will continue the journey with us. We want to tell stories of hope. We want to build hopeful communities. We want to inspire action that makes the world a better place.
Mandy
