Positive Vibes

There’s a lot of negativity swirling around lately so I thought we could all use a healthy dose of optimism and positivity. Below are some examples I’ve come across the past few weeks highlighting the brighter side of human nature.       

Two weeks ago, during his commencement speech at Morehouse College, Robert F. Smith pledged to pay off all student loans for the 396 graduates. His reasoning was simple: “”This will allow them to pursue their dreams … As opposed to serving the debt.”       

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was established by the founder of Microsoft and his wife in 2000. To date the foundation has deployed over $45 billion to those in need. Just a few examples of what their donations have allowed:

• Immunization of over 700 million children across the globe
• Retroviral therapy for 17 million HIV patients
• Treatment of more than 100 million cases of malaria in 2017 alone
• Virtually eliminated the polio virus which is now only found in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Two decades ago it was active in 125 countries.

The Warren Buffett Giving Pledge was the idea of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. The goal was to get the wealthy to commit at least half their wealth to charity, either in their lifetime or upon their death.         

To date 191 individuals or families have committed. Buffett himself has pledged 99% of his roughly $80 billion fortune to charity. As he says, ““Were we to use more than 1% of my wealth on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others.”       

And to prove you don’t have to be wealthy to make an impact, Dan Dewey, while his father was receiving chemo in 2007, started going on Starbucks coffee runs for his dad and the others receiving chemo on the same day. He paid for it all out of his own pocket.       

Eventually a Starbucks barista created a special debit card so customers could help him defray some of the costs. Today Mr. Dewey takes orders and delivers roughly 90 Starbucks drinks a week to cancer patients and the Oncology staff.       

If you’re interested in donating visit his Facebook page, Dan’s Coffee Run. Or as he encourages, take on some acts of kindness yourself.     

There are so many more examples of generosity if we just look a little deeper. News, whether local, national, or world, tends to be tilted heavily towards the negative. This can lead us to believe nothing good is going on in the real world. But as the examples above prove, the world isn’t all that bad.

Rick