Feel Good Friday

There’s so much good stuff going on in the US this week that I had trouble finding only 5 articles!  I ended up with six today, but I could have gone on and on.  Enjoy!

22 year old graduates valedictorian from college after dropping out of high school.  After Michael Moubarek had an accident that could have killed him, he decided to make some changes, went back and finished high school, and now intends to be a doctor.  Great article, and it just goes to show that no matter what, life can change anytime.  Never give up!

5-year-old invites homeless man for a meal at the Waffle House after learning what “homeless” meant.

Police in Farmington, NH have started stopping people to praise and reward them for following laws.  Police said they feel like it’s helping them to get to know the community, and also nice to be able to have positive interactions with people.  They reported that they thought of the program after seeing a man go out of his way to use the crosswalk after heavy snow.

Teens take service dogs to prom.  Neither of them planned to go to prom, but then they met because of their service dogs, and decided to go together.  Cutest double date ever!  This is a video.

Update.  Last week, I posted about a veteran who has prostate cancer and was released from the hospital to a home with no food.  He called 911, and since then, he’s continued to receive food donations and is now getting Meals on Wheels.  It’s nice to see how much people care.

America’s oldest park ranger advocates for people of color, and she hopes, opens options to little girls.

Feel Good Friday

Hello!  It’s Friday again, many people’s favorite day of the week (second only to Saturday).

I’ve summed up the stories I’ve posted, but these aren’t the complete stories.  Click the link to read the entire articles, see the pictures, or watch the videos.  Thanks for stopping by, and I hope these stories make you smile, the same way they did for me.

911 operator buys food for an elderly vet who needed help.  He was in the hospital, and when he was discharged, he had no food at home, no family to help, and no way of buying groceries.  The 911 operator and police bought him food and took it to his house.  He is now receiving assistance from social services.

A Phoenix police officer helped a homeless man by taking him to the hospital and making sure he had a plan to care for himself after surgery.  These things weren’t his job, but he did them anyway.  If he didn’t do them, they might not have gotten done, and the man obviously needed the help.

A school sends home an uplifting letter before a big test, to remind children that the test does not measure everything that’s important.  The original letter was apparently written in 1999, and it occasionally goes viral.  It just goes to show that we’re all hungry for positive feedback and that tests measure very little of who we actually are.

A teenaged boy took his great-grandmother to prom because “she’s the prettiest woman.”  The month before (linked in this article), another teen took her grandfather to prom.  Proms have come under fire for being superficial and girls wearing inappropriate dresses, so it’s nice to see this newer trend with teens taking family members or friends to prom.  (I’m a sucker for these stories.)  Here’s a link to another one where the high school quarterback took his friend, a girl with Down’s Syndrome, to the prom.

Shelter dog scheduled for euthanasia is adopted by a veteran, and is now in the running for hero dog of the year for helping the vet manage his PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

That’s all I’ve got for this week, but that’s obviously not all the news.  Remember, there’s a lot of good things in the world.  It’s what you focus on that matters.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Feel Good Friday

TGI Friday, right?  Start your morning off right and take a look at these articles.

A Texas police officer responded to a call about an “aggressive” pit bull, and instead of jumping to conclusions, he saw that the dog was friendly, and got it to a shelter, where it was then reunited with its owner.  The story isn’t over.  That same police officer was called again about the same dog.  This time though, the owner didn’t want him back, so the officer decided that he was meant to adopt the dog, and he did.

 Green graffiti.  This is a how to tutorial (and has some cool pictures) about how to graffiti up your home or fence using moss.

Inspirational stories of forgiveness.  These are 10 very brief stories (1 paragraph each) about people who chose to forgive in the worst of situations.

Pittsburgh police detective adopts boys after getting them out of an abusive foster home.  This is a nice video, about 2 minutes long telling the story of how he met and adopted the boys.

A teenager invents a device to help injured vets.  The device assists physical therapists with exercising the vets and speeding their recovery.

Go forth and be kind today.

Feel Good Friday

Here’s this week’s edition of Feel Good Friday.  Remember to focus on what you want to see in the world.  That’s not to say to ignore the negative stuff, but try not to focus on it.

People pay MORE for coffee on the honor system.

Acid rain effects are reversing.

You can’t change what happens to you, but you can change how you react to it.

Celebrity employs the homeless to make jewelry.

Florida cop helps man in wheelchair.

“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.” -Gautama Buddha

Feel Good Friday

Welcome to this week’s edition of feel good Friday.  I think that if we constantly focus on the bad news, that’s all we believe happens.  I’d rather feed what I want to grow, so I feed the good news (the flowers) and neglect the bad news (the weeds).

4 normal looking guys recreate underwear ads.  Way to go body acceptance for men too!

We’ve heard about all the bad stuff happening in Ferguson, but what about the good?

99 year old woman sews a dress a day for African girls.

Homeless vets build homes for other homeless vets.

10 cops caught helping others.

Kids dance to Pharell’s Happy.

Kindness isn’t as rare as the news and Facebook would have us think.  There’s kindness everywhere, and good people waiting to be kind.  The problem is that when we focus on all the awful stuff, people forget that kindness will mostly be returned with kindness.  Not always.  The world isn’t fair, and the there are people out there who will hurt you, usually because they’ve been hurt and don’t know how to deal with kindness.  But you can choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution.  Which will you choose today?