Focusing on the positive in 2018

2017 was a rough year for the planet, and as with every new year, there is hope that 2018 will be better. Negativity has already been prevalent in 2018, such as the Logan Paul video that graphically showed a man hanging in the suicide forest of Japan and Trump tweeting about his “big nuclear button” and later going on to tweet that he was “like, really smart” and a “very stable genius.” But 2018 has, in other ways, gotten off to a pretty okay start.

North and South Korea have plans to reopen peace talks. Largely due to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, tensions are slightly lessened right now. North Korea has reopened a phone line with South Korean officials, and they met on January 9th in the truce village of Panmunjom. The two countries are still negotiating, but it has been decided that they will march under one Korean flag at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang.

A service that has been operating in Rwanda to bring blood to in-need hospitals will begin operating in Tanzania in 2018. The service, known as “Uber for blood,” is a partnership between the company Zipline and Rwanda’s health ministry. It began in the late summer of 2017, and has cut the time for delivery of life saving medication and blood to rural areas from four hours to half an hour. Zipline has managed this by using small flying drones to deliver supplies.

Oprah Winfrey was the first black woman to be awarded the Cecil B. Demille Award for lifetime achievement at this year’s Golden Globe Awards. She delivered a very powerful speech to a room of people dressed in black, who, by wearing black, were protesting sexual harassment and gender inequality in the workplace.

“I want all the girls watching here, now, to know that a new day is on the horizon!” Winfrey said in her acceptance speech. “And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ‘Me too’ again.”

Sterling K. Brown also made history at the Golden Globes as the first black man to be awarded Best Actor in a drama. He made certain to thank his wife, who he did not get to thank in his speech after winning an Emmy for his portrayal of Christopher Darden in “The People Vs. OJ Simpson.” He also thanked his children, telling them “daddy loves you”  and then promising to “take them to school in the morning.”

The world is not always a positive place, but there will always be good things happening and progress being made. Although it can be extremely difficult, it is always possible to focus on news stories that make the world seem a little brighter, and give us a bit more hope that humanity is going to be okay.