THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD. THERE’S NO WAY TO BE UPBEAT

REALITY

Bring your positive outlook back by looking at history, not headlines. “According to just about every indicator of human wellbeing, we’re better off than any other time in history,” says Marian Tupy, editor of humanprogress.org. For most of our past,he says, people lacked things such as basic medicine. The trouble is that the bad news of the day comes right to our phones and checking history takes effort. A shortcut: think about what you have today that you wouldn’t have had 100 years ago. Refrigerators. Cars. Mobile phones. Internet.

To help keep bad news from overshadowing everything else, seek out other news.

Don’t lose sight of the fact child mortality, illiteracy, and poverty are down worldwide.

And, even in tragedies, there are stories of human resilience to be found.