One Good Thing -- First thing's first

Look.

I don't mean this to be, nor do I have the cheerful psychological makeup to make this the daily writing exercise equivalent of a Hang in There poster or one of those bright Unicorn fireworks Ghandi-quoting message memes that fly around the social media.

There's plenty of shitty stuff going on in the world. It's okay to point out the shitty stuff. If you don't at least acknowledge the shitty stuff from time to time, chances are you will go insane.

But there's also a lot of good things in the world, at least in my world. The big obvious things like family and partners and friends. The take-it-for granted things that can sometimes suck a little bit but that I'm better for having, like a job and a roof over my head and not having been tossed in debtor's prison yet. The little things, which I imagine mostly include birds, and birds singing, and the places where birds fly to and from, and the birds not pooping on my head.

Simply, there are more than enough good things going on, from big to small to bird-related where it's possible to write about one good thing every (okay, almost every) day.

This is the totally non-binding mission I have given myself. As someone who is told should write more, I will try to write about one good thing every (okay, almost every) day. My friend Bill Woolum, for as long as I have known him, has kept up a good pace of writing about Three Beautiful Things on many days.

We will see how I do with a much more modest self-imposed goal. For today, that I'm willing to give it a shot is a good thing.