Breaking News: Your Fear will destroy you or...Spread the Good.

That negative part of the headline started to get your attention, didn’t it? They frequently do and it’s the reason why I recently agreed to be a part of the global “See The Good” campaign. I could put the Breaking News part in red to create the sense of “this is going to be bad and you really need to know how much it will be awful.”  If it had been green, you would have sub-consciously been less concerned.  The psychology of color is really fascinating but that’s a blog for another day.  Don’t worry, this isn’t actually about the bad, it’s all about the good.  

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Martin Luther King Jr. delivered this famous line in Montgomery, Alabama, on November 17, 1957.

As people, there’s been an abundance of hyping up the negative when in truth, there is wonderful news, amazing innovation, incredible positive stories of perseverance and success, and people helping people all around. We are not at war with each other, we are all part of the same universal creation whether we acknowledge it at the personal level or not.  We need to see the good in order to live the best lives we can, but also to ensure others can do the same.  Life is not a zero sum game and that means we can and should focus on the abundance that life has to offer and doing what we can to ensure others can experience it as well.   What if we started realizing that we are actually more successful individually if we also help others to rise?

In advertising through the ages, humans have been known to gravitate towards bad news, see negative things as being more real than positive, and tend to follow those who put forth solutions for killing a thing instead of celebrating it.  Why?  Fundamentally, it’s our engrained fight or flight response, our animal instincts overcoming our human identity and burying our souls under layers of guilt and fear.  If a predator or potentially dangerous situation arises, we are attuned to fight or flee these situations.  It’s a literal life or death response that raises the heart rate, and fires the brain into a high gear focused on base survival instead of successful living. 

More relaxed topics like great food, smooth wine, a roof over our head, basic health, watching a sunset, and a pleasant evening surrounded by wonderful people is just chill.  It’s the better part of life, but it doesn’t engender a drama response. Unfortunately, we are predictable and there are plenty of people who feel strongly they need to get a dramatic response from you.  They need your money, your time, or your mind and so the negative headlines, vitriol that creates fear, division between people, and the concocting of ideas meant to make you fear your world is collapsing permeate the news, social media, coffee shop conversations and especially global politics.  Those businesses operating less than ethically,, con-artists, and politicians know, fear is their power. Actually saying things are going well is often seen as a rapid path to failure when competing against someone or something telling you, even if the facts are to the contrary, that you are about to die and your children are about to be forever corrupted, or that a certain type of person is coming to take away your quality of life or taking over your neighborhood.  

But what we want is for you to share your good news stories with me and the See the Good campaign. 

In reality, the world is on average a far safer place than it has ever been in spite of those areas where negativity and suffering are driving the conversations and battles..  As a human race, our ability to lift us all up has never been stronger if we work together.  As societies, we have amazing technologies and innovations that collectively help us to live longer, feed more of us, make our situation more sustainable at scale and ultimately be a more cohesive world.  Celebrating the amazing fabric of humanity, our cultures, our music, our food, our people, our varied lifestyles that bring us all to see the world through a kaleidoscope of perspectives is a blessing.  It’s on the edges that messages of hate grab a thread and unravel an entire societal framework.  

WE NEED TO SEE THE GOOD.  We need to champion ten times over the good news stories, not the bad in order to change the collective mind set to one of more positivity. Stay out of the muck of politics and vitriol and find those who are aggressively doing the great things that change the world.  And in so doing we collectively are able to positively expand jobs, food, shelter, quality of life for even just one more person each day.  Individually we cannot do it all, but at scale we each have the ability to build just one and then one more good thing.  We, as humans, should be in the business of building bridges between each other, not barriers. 

I’m a realist in the sense that I am aware there is always going to be someone causing a ruckus and trying to make themselves king, dictator, emperor, destroyer of worlds, Whoever the Conqueror, etc etc. And I know accidents happen and at some point we all will face our end moment in this life. Choosing to see the good is a choice.  There is always light in darkness and it’s amazing to me how quickly a single glimmer of a candle can then light an entire room.  A single star in the sky on a dark night can lead us to a great destination.  It is not on us to change everything, it is on us to be that candle or that single star.   

I’m aware that for every one of those who want to be conquerors, there are millions of people wanting to peacefully co-exist, be a light for someone, and if given the chance to see the good. We will choose that over fear and hate.  So help us to help others See the Good.  Start by sending me your stories of the good in the world and just do that one thing that changes someone’s day.  I want to share the stories. Power of Positive thinking

Email:Chris.day@alwaysdriveinnovation.com

Learn more about the See The Good Campaign at: https://www.seethegoodnow.com/