Finding Gratitude When Things Suck

I know, I know, the world is a fucking dumpster fire right now. Everyone is in panic mode, there’s a very real pandemic sweeping the globe, and heaven forbid you run out of toilet paper—you’re pretty much screwed and will be out of food too and have to eat your shoes.

via GIPHY We’re all fine. Just fucking fine.

It’s a time when it’s so important to stay focused and grounded, and I’ve discovered over the past few days that I’m finding joy in small acts of compassion and kindness that I’m seeing on social media. For every 100 people hoarding Charmin like they’re some sort of toilet paper troll, there’s one person who’s doing something kind and selfless.

There are people in Italy, where the Covid-19 virus is wreaking havoc, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy with music and song, here and here, filling the abandoned streets of their towns with beauty.

There’s this guy on Twitter, who works in a grocery store and wants to share food safety tips since most people have no clue, and this woman who helped an older couple with their shopping because they were afraid to go inside. There’s this thread about a Muslim couple who own a corner store in Scotland assembling relief packages for the seniors in their village.

There are school districts that are closing down all of their buildings, but still managing to feed kids who might not get meals otherwise.

It’s the small things like this, amid all of the closings and the fear and the hoarding behaviors and the people generally behaving like assholes, that brings a bit of light into an increasingly dark world.

It’s moments like this that make me hope we’ll get through this, by indulging in random acts of goodness.

I’m thankful for these people and so many more like them. I’m grateful that as of now, we haven’t completely lost our humanity and decency.

We need more of it.

Find ways to be kind. It costs you nothing.