#there is good in the world

[swaps55]

I had to get up off the mat and attend a conference today. I was dreading it. Woke up at 3:30 this morning with a knot in my stomach heavy enough to be a murder weapon, and now I had to talk to people who possibly voted against my existence and act like it was fine.

But a couple of things happened today.

I work in a fairly niche industry, and in the sessions I attended today, people were talking about solving problems.

In one session, the speaker talked about discovering an accessibility problem on their college campus. This university is in a remote area, and students without cars weren't enrolling because public transit to get there took four hours.

So a group of people sat down in a room to try and solve the problem, afraid they'd run into roadblocks with costs and infrastructure. To their delight, they realized that by moving a bus stop and adjusting bus schedules by 15 minutes, they could take that 4 hours down to 90 minutes.

This speaker was so excited about creating better access for students who needed it. They'd found a solution for people who wanted to learn but couldn't due to lack of transportation.

In another session, a panel of people talked about how they integrate art into public buildings, and how the public entity, building designer, builder, and artist worked together to create art that belonged to a community, and how all the challenges to making it happen were worth solving. The building they did their case study on was beautiful.

In a later session, a room full of higher education professionals who manage transportation on their campuses talked about the growing need for EV charging stations on campus. It's a surprising complex and complicated challenge in terms of energy supply, infrastructure, cost, planning, etc. There are no easy answers on how to do it.

A few made the observation that by providing chargers, they'd accidentally wound up in the energy business, where they didn't think universities should be.

"Yes we should," one of them said. He went on to remind us that yes, we could expect students and faculty could go home to charge their cars instead of doing it on campus. But those are also the worst time to plug into the grid. It's overloaded. Solar energy can't handle it, so it taps into fossil fuels. It's dirty energy. And he wasn't satisfied for making it someone else's problem. "We don't have to be in the energy business. But it's better for the environment if we are. It's better for the future. We should be in the energy business, because it's the right thing to do."

All day I was surrounded by people who put their professional energy into solving problems, not because it would make them rich, but because they were problems that needed to be solved, and they were the ones who took it upon themselves to solve them.

And...I felt better.

After the electric vehicle panel, I thanked the person who made a plea for the right thing to do, because I felt a little less despair after hearing it. He smiled at me and said, "Yesterday was rough. But 48 million people in this country stood up and did the right thing. That's a lot of people."

On a lot of days to come that might not feel like enough. But in your city, in your town, in your state, there are still people who are taking on challenges and standing up to do the right thing, for both the small things and the big things.

It's not going to be easy. But I'm going to be one of them.

[dzgrizzle]

[chaotic-trav]

Actually life is about waking up everyday and reminding yourself that " There is good in this world even if I can't see it. There is good no matter what happens because bad, good and neutral all exist together. There is good in the world but its just so hidden by the bad and the neutral that it's become impossible to see it but if I look hard enough, if I look into the darkness, I can find scattered lights everywhere, lighting the way. There's good in this world and there will always be good in the world. I just need to look harder." No matter what, even if you don't believe it fully. Because just acknowledging that fact helps

[sjbattleangel]

"There are no heroes in real life."

Oh yeah, doomer? Well explain David Tennent, Will Wheaton, Rebecca Sugar, ND Stevenson, Daniel Radcliff, Greta Thumburg, Linkara, Malala Yousafzai, Colin kaepernick, Roxanne Gay, Elliot Page, Gail Simone, Linda Sarsour, Bree Newsome, Kelly Marie Tran, Jamie Lee Curtis, Emma Watson, Kyle Kallgren, John Boyega, Harry Brewis, Abigail Thorn and every single person fighting for Palestine's freedom.

Just because everyone you ever met or looked up to betrayed you doesn't mean humanity is doomed.

There ARE heroes in real life. You just gave up on the world.

[softguarnere]

In which my mom continues to be the sweetest and most supportive person ever:

When I was a kid there was a set of action figures that I would have loved to have, but I never bothered asking for them. Which was for the best, because my dad would have claimed that I didn't need them and would have given them to my brother or one of my cousins.

I'm not even sure they make these things anymore, yet somehow my mom stumbled across them yesterday and got them for me to put on my bookshelf. She never even knew I wanted them, but she still saw them and thought of me, and that's what it's all about -- to be thought of.

[homeforinsomniacs]

"they called us freaks" does a pirouette "so let's get freaky" - sonic the hedgehog, 2022

[starfayy]

Kind reminder that there is good in this world, there is happiness and good people, anywhere. Joy and kindness and determinations amongst all those black clouds. There is good to fight for.

[bluebyrd-screaming]

Something about James Chapeskie just males me want to go out an unapologetically create

[monsterfuckeronestrogen]

Tragedy cancelled my mom called my wife cute

[lilacs-and-memes]

There was this abandoned white dog hanging around the block. And she was quickly named by the neighbors "Paloma"(dove). She used to hang around a hair salon and a bar but one day we didn't see her anymore.

Mom and I the bleeding hearts that we are lamented and worried about her.

Today we saw the hair stylist from that hair salon walking that lovely dog on a harness. The doggy looked so well groomed and proud. And we almost cried as we squealed in joy "She was adopted!".

[wowzoerz-blog]

I was about to start a depression spiral but then I ate 2 pickles and had a bath so hot it would give a lesser woman 1.5 degree burns

[hopeforitri]

sometimes I think there aren't good people in my town, but there are, i know that bc last night I was 49¢ short in change and a lady laid for my 4.49 donuts.

there are good people out there.

[jusst-you-race]

I was so stressed about the chat fic because trying to be funny on purpose is kind of terrifying but everyone’s been SO nice so far and I am feeling very soft and loved rn

love you all I’m going to bed

[captain-jacks-coat]

"If a man tries to touch you, break his fucking legs. If you can't, let me know, and I'll break his fucking legs. If the school gets you in trouble for it, I'm pulling you out" -my dad.

[fen-the-space-dragon]

Y’ALL

KIDS ARE FUCKING AMAZING (<- a rare statement from me)

So I have one of those video doorbells and I’m sad I’m not home for Halloween so I was watching trick or treaters and some kid noticed that someone was watching through the doorbell. THEY LEFT ME CANDY. DUDE. THIS KID WHO CAME TO GET CANDY JUST LEFT CANDY FOR ME JUST CUZ THEY KNEW I EXISTED. So I told my parents and they went to go see if the candy was actually there and if so, grab it for me

GUYS LOOK

This is the picture my mom sent me. I’m reverse trick or treating from like forever away apparently. I love this kid sm I don’t even know who they are but they just made my entire day

There is good in the world, and it’s in the form of little kids giving out candy while trick or treating. Seriously this kid made me cry tears of joy I’m not joking