This morning as I was watching last night’s Craig Ferguson Show that we tape since we can’t stay up that late, his monologue struck a chord with me.

He stated that he’s been feeling rather depressed lately, and I have to admit that so have I, and I wonder if anyone else has been feeling the same.

I find it depressing to read the news every day and every day the news seems to be nothing but doom and gloom.

If it’s not articles about the Party of NO, it’s stories about Limbaugh’s and Beck’s latest bloviations, Sarah Palin’s Charismatic Apostolic Warriors taking over our government, the 244% increase in hate groups, unemployment, foreclosures, Americans suffering without health care, earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.

I’ve been thinking about the typical platitude of counting my blessings, and I do have innumerable blessings in my life, and focusing on the positives rather than negatives, and then I log onto the Internet and the depressing cycle starts again.

So, I started thinking of what I can do in my every day life to get around the blues and decided that I need an attitude adjustment.

Today is the day that I am starting my personal movement to cheer up, by finding at least one good news story every single day.

I have also decided to stop playing into the negativity by referring to Tea Party people as teabaggers, and instead calling them, well, Tea Party People or referring to the group as the Tea Party Movement.

I am going to try very hard to speak about Republicans, Palin, Limbaugh and Beck, et all, in a respectful manner, taking a cue from Van Jones and his graciousness in telling Beck that he loves him, even if it was tongue in cheek, but I think the man really meant it.

In other words, I’m going to try to play nice and not lower myself to the opposition’s level.

Have you ever gotten really angry with someone and blew up and told them off?

How did it make you feel afterward?

I’ve done that a few times in my life, and every single time I’ve regretted it afterward and I felt horrible and worse than I did about whatever offense occurred to bring on my anger or hurt feelings.

I’m taking the high road, or going to try my damnedest to do that, as it is healthier for my frame of mind.

My feel good story of the day is this one –

Veterinarian Wins Pay It Forward

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I am a retired aerospace engineer, happily married for over twenty-four years. My hobbies include blogging on PPOV, reading mystery/romance novels, playing guitar, learning the piano and writing. My husband and I love to travel in our camper/trailer, and have visited 45 states, besides having lived in France for 2 years and seeing most of Europe. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life? Well, that's true of every day but one - the day you die." American Beauty "All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure." Mark Twain "A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar." Mark Twain

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VegasBabe
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Wednesday wasn’t a great day. I’ll spare you all the details. But at the end of the day, I decided to reward myself with a nice warm Starbucks latte. When I drove up to the window to pay, the gal advised that my bill was one dollar less than it should be, because the customer before him and the customer even before that one all had contributed one dollar to each of their bills. I dare not let it end with me. And as I drove away, I thought, what a sweet thing for someone to have thought of to do, and how fortunate that I was able to participate. Wow. Prior to that incident, depression was attempting to get a nice grip on my shoulders and that experience was actually just enough to tell depression to take a flying leap. Something that simple and innocuous did it. Staying away from the local news channels including my personal favorite, CNN, helps too.

SueInCa
Member

Well the movie Pay it Forward was based in Vegas. So someone listened. I do things like that at the bridges here in CA, pay for one car behind me when I have the money. I hope it makes that person think and pay it forward again.

AdLib
Admin

Hey VB!

That is a very cool story! Really illustrates how the actions of one person can ripple to positively affect many others. Very affirming.

But you could’ve picked up a mocha frappuccino for me while you were there.

Pass it forward…I’m thirsty!

BigDogMom
Member
BigDogMom
escribacat
Member

Great link, BDM. Those Portuguese Water Dogs are adorable. Looks to me like that little rascal Bo is still pulling on the leash though!

BigDogMom
Member
BigDogMom

javaz, thank you for your words of inspiration, I think all of us in this country are on overload when it comes to depressing news which is creating fear and uncertainty in every one of our lives today.

This constant barrage of negativity coming from everywhere, the MSM, friends and neighbors, will eventually eat us up inside. How each one of us deals with this will come out in different forms, the Tea Party and Coffee Party Movements, along with GROW are just some examples of how we are expressing our helplessness and frustration with the situation.

Some people act or act out, some people flee and hide, some people just wallow when faced with a bad situation.

I believe this is one of the reasons for my husbands panic attack and depression, and others like him in our country.

In my husbands case, he has the sensitive nature of what I call the “starving artist mentality”, where they take on the worlds and others problems and internalize them. The way he solves these problems mentally and emotionally, like many other artists, is not verbally, but through his work. But unfortunately due to the economy the number of projects that he has to work normally on has been cut in half.

Therefore his outlet to express his frustration and anger at the worlds ills has been stifled, thus creating, what I would call, a backup emotionally and now it has come out physically.

The helplessness that I feel at not being able to make it alright for him, sometimes is overwhelming for me, but I keep on trucking. All I can do is be there for him right now is listen and try not to be over motherly to him, he hates when I smother him….

So, last night I made it a point not to turn on the news last night, (but sneaked a peak at the Ed Show while I was cooking in the kitchen alone), I believe that sometimes watching silly shows, like a good bodice ripping novel every once and a while, is good for the soul. It takes you away from your troubles for a brief moment in time. I also encouraged him to talk to his brother when he called last night, it sounded like a good conversation from the part that I could hear, he was laughing for the first time in weeks.

So I think the positive way you have decided proceed through these trying times is an inspiration to all of us, to look for something good in a big pile of bad, and as the saying goes, “If life hands you lemons make lemonade”.

And like my Mother always said, “This too shall pass, when you look back a year or two from now, you will only remember the good and not the bad, our minds have a funny way of dealing with things.”

AdLib
Admin

I do think that harboring a lot of hatred can eat you up from inside but as I mentioned on Cher’s post, hatred is as natural an emotion as love.

Justifiable anger can lead people to do very positive things, like vote out Repubs and put Barack Obama in the White House. Unjustified anger can cause people to do horrible things, like make death threats against Pres. Obama.

I think balance is the key in life, falling on one side or the other of moderation can cause problems.

I like that my anger can motivate me to make a difference. However, as you point out, it is important too to appreciate the things that validate ones feelings about the way things should be.

No need to mention how destructive hate can be but using the most familiar example, Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler turned out to contribute to WW II and eventually, the Holocaust. Pacifism is sometimes the right choice, as it would have been towards Iraq but was the wrong choice towards Hitler.

My POV is that it is appropriate to feel outraged towards those who express hateful or destructive views or act upon them. But one can’t live on anger alone and I agree that it is valuable to focus on the affirmative as well to keep a balance and not be swallowed up by cynicism or spite.

Blues Tiger
Member
Blues Tiger

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Chernynkaya
Member

That was a wonderful story! And Javaz, that vet could be Republican, and if so he is one even I could like!

nellie
Member

Very nice post, javaz. I’ve come to think that a lot of the media hysteria is designed to do exactly what you’re feeling — to get people so disgusted that they get depressed and tune out of politics. Either that or to get them all riled up so that they’re off ranting at the wrong thing — like the Tea Party folks.

Our media information stream is not designed to keep us involved and engaged. Just the opposite.

I like your good news story idea. I do something like that every day. I read the LA transportation blogs — they are very entertaining — and for someone who cycles to work, like I do, very helpful. I also read education news, which tends to deal with an important subject in very sober and helpful ways.

escribacat
Member

I’m on overload lately too, javaz. I’ve hardly been watching the news. I’m OD’d on outrage. It’s almost spring. I want to hike with my dogs. I want to plant my new vegetable garden. I want to air out the house. I want to forget about Washington D.C. But then I start thinking What am I going to do about insurance? again. I will be so glad with this HCR business is signed and done.

msbadger
Member
msbadger

Hi, e-cat! I’m with you. The health care issue is guaranteed to keep me all agitated, and either hopeful or depressed. I want to air out my room, and my brain! I actually do seek out the positive stories in my area newspapers and worldwide. There are almost always 2 or 3 pieces of good news! It’s always good to see you at PuffHo too.

Chernynkaya
Member

I really like the idea of posting a daily “good news” story! Sometimes I need one, and I have toyed with the idea myself, but the best I could do was to post a funny YouTube vid. That works for me most days.