I am a bit confused and disturbed about the viral video of the South Dakota woman helping the woman in front of her pay for diapers. In a single day it has received coverage on various national news outlets including NBC's Today show and ABC's Good morning America, while also receiving tens of thousands of hits on social networking sites. While it is encouraging to see that a significant percentage of the population is entertained and encouraged by such an act, it is equally disheartening to find that being kind warrants coverage as a national news story.
While the +Planet website was initially designed to draw attention to stories such as this, the thought was to aggregate and archive these types of interactions multiple times a week in hopes that we could help inspire people to make positive news a part of their daily routines. In doing so we hoped to begin changing the daily conversation little by little from the negative to the positive end of the social spectrum.
In following the Twitter or Facebook feeds of +Planet or any of the similar organizations that +Planet follows, re-posts, and re-tweets through our social media presence, people can find hundreds of similar stories of everyday people making kind gestures to others within their local communities. However, now it appears that neighborly kindness is perceived by the general population as so rare, that it makes national headlines.
National news should be just that. News that affects the nation. If a local criminal stealing cars in South Dakota does not make the major networks' morning shows then how does a woman that is simply being generous? Thankfully these types of gestures happen every day, across the world. We do not need national news intermittently heralding them as modern-day miracles, we just need to begin opening our eyes and paying attention to the people around us. Heck, maybe even get inspired by the people featured in these stories and perform your own act of kindness, be it random or not.
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+Planet is always looking for content from anyone and everyone. If you know of a person, event, or organization that inspires positivity, perseverance, strength or hope, let us know or send us a story. We also accept blog submissions about topics relevant to our purpose. Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the website, follow us on Twitter @positiveplanet_ and like us on Facebook.
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