Our daughters are 19 and 17, a college sophomore and high school senior. One is currently with Rockwell Collins for six months, doing software engineering during her coop, the other really hasn’t decided on where she’d like to go to college and is currently on her fourth (yes fourth) phone in two years.

One’s blonde, the other brunette. One’s got blue eyes, the other brown. One has picked up the rare tall gene in our families, the other all the short genes combined. One is very quiet and introverted, the other you can’t keep her quiet. The one thing they have in common:

Both think their parents are the worst parents in the world.

Yeah, I’m pretty ticked at both of them for a variety of reasons and would continue the fun little rant except this happened.

25 Grateful People Share The Most Incredible Act of Generosity Someone Has Ever Done For Them.

Now, I’m that guy that shows a lot of videos in class that deal with keeping positive, pushing yourself to go forward, and never giving up. I’m that guy tweets out the #mondaymotivation stuff or whatever hashtag that can help lift other people up. However, sometimes, I need this too. And today, as I’m stewing in the “how did we manage to screw them up this bad” I came across the above mentioned article. Now, I’m not going to say that all of them made an impact, but most did.

Then, I read an article about the rapper Macklemore and how his most recent video was in honor of his grandmother’s 100th birthday. They go around and do some fun stuff, little bucket lists things she wanted, but comments below the article were what got me. Strangers sharing their love for their grandparents, memories, comforting each other about their losses. How cool is that??

And finally, somehow I can across this about Fajden, the rescued fighting bull. Apparently, this bull was bred for the specific purpose of dying the bullfighting ring, but was somehow found and rescued by Christophe Thomas, a French farmer. The first link tells a really great story about the bull by Christophe. He was told by a breeder of Fajden: “If you take good care of him, he will be more loyal to you than you owe dog.” These last two links, one of feeing, the other of a good brushing just make me smile.

Why share all this? Sometimes, we we are crabby, grumpy, and just want to lash out, the universe finds us and just says “here’s something to restore your faith in humanity”. That’s what happened to me. Kindness and respect for our fellow humans in need, kindness and respect paid to one’s grandmother, along with kindness and respect paid to animals. That’s kind of a trifecta of awesome.

If you are feeling down, look at the links, enjoy them for the sappy, silly things they are, but enjoy them because out there, your positive energy is ready to return.

Let it in. 🙂