Good News Only | THE VIRAL Journal, Part 22
By Josh Jennrich
As days go by, and we continue to learn more about the worlds pandemic, it’s often hard to remain forever hopeful and on the positive side of things. We are all trying to continue moving forward with our normal habits and routines. We talk with friends and family members because we are interested in what they’ve been up to and what their thoughts are about everything. We try to find news sources and outlets that we hope we can trust to just give us the simple honest answers about everything. We simply just want things to go back to normal. Well, as normal as they can be. Then maybe we wonder if life will ever go back to any sort of normal?!
Lucky enough, I’ve personally been able to stay on the greener side of things and I’d like to share with you what has worked for me. Years ago I was discussing news and politics with my mother. For the sake of being honest, there are many things we agree on, and there are many things that we agree to disagree on. It’s amazing that we live in a place where we can openly voice our opinions. There are many places in this world, even in this current time, that people cannot openly express their opinions. For this, I’m grateful.
Today we have the internet, radio stations, news channels, and any related podcast that has the ability to broadcast national and worldwide news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And even more, this news is being broadcasted among divided platforms that are not held accountable for what might actually be true or misleading. My mom explained, “when I was a child, the news was a family event, similar to a family dinner. There was a single news channel that broadcasted for 1 hour each day. That was it! You either heard the news or you didn’t.” I found this comment profound and it made me wonder why that has changed. It helped me grasp why so many people revolve their lives around politics. Considering most of the news that is being broadcasted in negative and angry. We rarely see news that highlights and helps lift people up. News that makes people smile, news that encourages people to want to do kind things within their communities to lift others up.
So today I want to share with you some GOOD NEWS, because there are so many amazing people in our beautiful world that are doing great things and deserve to be highlighted! In the midst of darkness, there is always light! In the midst of a pandemic, there are people doing great things. Today I want to highlight our frontline healthcare workers. Doctors, nurses, and the like. These amazing folks are working within enemy lines, literally risking their lives to help combat our current crisis. No questions asked, they show up to work, working 12-24 hour days, because they care about humanity. It takes a special person to do this, and for that, WE THANK YOU! Recently Mental Health America, created a program that allows you to send unconditional messages of love and support to a frontline hero—and get one in return. This is amazing!
For Goodness’ Sake,
Josh
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Our e-journal documents the COVID-19 pandemic from our viewpoint within our community. In the short-term, we hope it promotes connectivity and contrast within our shirtBOARD network. In the long-term, we hope it gives timely interpretations of the event to provide insight and understanding for future generations.
