A New Year message from i24 President, Gary Blair:

“If I heard it once this year, I’ve heard it a hundred times … life is scarier than ever.

Personally, I believe scary is always relative to the times we live in.  In hindsight, however, it rarely lives up to its reputation.  

Anyone remember the cold war and nuclear annihilation, Y2K or the credit freeze of 2008?  

As far as I can tell, “the sky is falling” people will always be around to drum up insecurity.

Interestingly, during the same time the sky was falling, humanity was also moving forward in many incredibly positive ways.  

Developments in medicine included:

• the polio vaccine,
• artificial hearts and
• gene therapy

Technological breakthroughs included:

• space travel,
• the Internet,
• intelligent phones,
• GPS and
• 3D printers

And today we’re now perched on the edge of self-driven vehicles, AI, virtual reality and robotics, to mention only a few.  

In fact, in spite of what the headlines might have us believe otherwise, a larger percentage of humanity lives in better conditions than ever before in the history of our species.

Truth is we have the choice to join the lemmings jumping over the cliff or we can focus on the positive and influence our inner circle for the better.

Personally, I choose the latter.  

Not surprisingly, maintaining my focus on the myriad good things happening all around me, every day, results in more and more of it coming into my line of sight.

Want to increase your personal happiness?

Consider making a completely different kind of new year’s resolution this January.

Train your mind to constantly be looking for the good in humanity.  

You may not change the world measurably, but your world will change, immeasurably.”