The Glad Game

In the classic Disney movie "Pollyanna," the title character talks to the workers in her aunt's house about playing "The Glad Game."  She explains that it's a game she used to play with her father, where they would "find something about everything to be glad about."  She proceeds to play this game with various people in the town - showing a grumpy old man how to look for rainbows right around him; a crabby older lady how to find joy in service; her maiden aunt how to accept and show love; the preacher how to look for the glad verses in the Bible instead of always preaching "brimstone and damnation"; helping others find goodness in all the little things around them.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much sorrow and sadness and hardship there is everywhere in the world, from our own front door to the farthest reaches of the planet.  I've never been one to watch the news - it seems like all that is ever reported is bad/sad/scary/upsetting, etc.  (Being from Southeast Michigan with Detroit news stations doesn't help...)  

It's good to be informed, and we have to take the bad with the good.  But the trick is finding the good.  Eleanor H. Porter, the author of the book Pollyanna said this: "I have never believed that we ought to deny discomfort and pain and evil; I have merely thought that it is far better to 'greet the unknown with a cheer.'"

We also live in a world where the self is becoming much more important than the whole.  We take "selfies," we worry constantly about self image and what others think of us and how much money we have compared to others and our needs over the needs of everyone else.  When you're on an airplane, they always tell you that in the case of an emergency, you should put your air mask on first before helping others.  And in life, we do need to do that - take care of our basic needs first so we can pay our bills and have a roof over our heads, but then we need to help others.  It's easy to stay focused on the self and forget to turn our attention back out to others - and when this happens it's not only the others who suffer, we ourselves suffer.  When we're too focused on our own problems and trials and hardships, we make ourselves miserable.  When we focus outward and help others, it takes our minds off of our own struggles and blesses the lives of others in the process.  Win-win!

So that's where this blog comes in.  I am inviting all of you to play The Glad Game with me!!  The Glad Gazette will be a collection of all things glad - anything that can make someone smile (though not at the expense of others).

Some examples:

- Good things that are happening to you or your community

- Random acts of kindness

- Service opportunities (for others to do/that have been done)

- Fun things to do

- How to find the good around you

- Clean jokes or comedy routines 

- Fun or inspiring news stories

- Uplifting books or music

- Inspiring quotes, etc.

I hope through this blog we can help ourselves and others find happiness, and maybe ease the burden of carrying pain and sorrow on our own.  

If you have a story you'd like to share, please email me at gladgazette(at)gmail(dot) com.  I'll edit everything and put it together for posting here!  Then we can be "all glad this and glad that" together.  "There's always something" to be glad about!