Harnessing Positivity Amidst Chaos

Today, I was putting laptops and iPads into a charging cart. At the end of this endeavor, I felt good. It got me thinking about world events. When a tragedy strikes, we are bombarded with news of the events, and I tend to feel like talking about a positive event in our day that is wrong. The term for this is negativity bias. This is the tendency to over-emphasize the negative, and loss aversion is the feeling. Studies have shown that the weight of negative events stays around longer in our brains than positive emotions. It was important for me to acknowledge a simple event like being able to put a laptop cart together. The laptops will be used by students and teachers to develop lesson plans, and students will learn new skills. So, even in the presence of tragedy, heartbreak, and loss, we can decide to do a kind act in the service of others.