Someone recently said to me “I love the way you view the world!” My reply? “Thank you…it’s a choice I choose to make.”

It’s always a choice. And sometimes it’s harder than others to find that “bright side” of things.

Take, for instance, a few weeks ago. The news was rife with one horrific occurrence after another. Add in a nasty and contentious political climate and you get a lot of negativity floating around. I found myself, already feeling sad, becoming increasingly overwhelmed with each social media post I read.

And then I remembered that I had a choice.

Sometimes it is really hard to find the positive, especially when you are feeing low. You see the world through a different lens. I knew it was important for me to get out of the swirl of negativity and regroup. So I took a week’s long social media hiatus, something that was not as easy as it sounds for this Facebook addict! But I knew that if I was ever going to find a way to be inspirational and motivational, I would need to refill my happiness coffers. So I stepped away from the mainstream to do just that.

Getting away from social media brought all types of rewards, from increased reading time, to catching up on favorite TV series. And then there is the actual eye contact and conversation over a meal. What a concept!

But I knew I needed more than a break to refresh my spirit. I needed more than the usual meditation and inspirational reading. I needed facts!  I KNEW that there is a lot of goodness in the world, not just the evil and heartache we keep hearing about. But I also was at a loss to come up with anything that could actually proven my theory that there is really more love than hate in the world. So I went on a happiness mission. And here is what I found:

• Every day in the US, 30,000 people fall in love
• 2.3 million couples wed every year in the US. That breaks down to nearly 6,200 weddings a day
• 3.9 million babies are born in the US each year. That means every day there are over 10,000 families experiencing the joy of a new life each day.
• It’s estimated that 70-80 million dogs and 74-96 million cats are owned in the United States. Approximately 37-47% of all households in the United States have a dog, and 30-37% have a cat. That’s a lot of puppy kisses every day!
• There are over 100,000 albums released each year. With probably at least that much new music on YouTube alone!
• Every day there is new artwork, new inventions, new theatre, new theories and new revelations. Every day is a new opportunity to discover something else new.

And every day you have a choice on how you view the world. Yes, every one of the facts above can be countered with a “yeah, but…”….but why go there? Why not find the joy and stick with it?

I may be off my Facebook hiatus, but I am back feeing stronger and more positive than ever. It’s my choice.

What is yours?