Taking stock of what's going right

Yes, Virginia, I spend a lot of time in this column focusing on the bad stuff.

It's the things going wrong, the things we could do better, the mess-ups and cover-ups and who-was-supposed-to-be-minding-the-store stuff that grabs my attention.

Partly it's the business I'm in - when you trade in the unusual and the cautionary, it can be easy to forget just how much is going right.

But, hey, you wouldn't bother reading the newspaper, either, if every morning's headline was that Everything is Mostly Fine.

It's in our nature to look to improve things. Politicians aren't re-elected by giving stump speeches promising not to change much if we elect them. Companies don't let employees write up annual goal sheets pledging to put in the same amount of work and hope for same results next year as last.

Still, it's good to take a break now and then to marvel a bit at all the things that are going right.

The lights that turn on, the plumbing that works, the buses that run (more or less) according to schedule - the little things that keep all the other things from falling apart.

It might sound softhearted coming from a journalist, but the fact is we live in one of the best-run states in one of the planet's wealthiest countries, during one of the safest, healthiest, most stable periods of history ever recorded.

And the people here are nothing to sneeze at, either.

In fact, it's the people I'm most grateful for when I stop to think about everything that's going right.

There's the anonymous donor who dropped a $200 gold coin in a Coralville Salvation Army kettle - the fourth year in a row.

There are the people who make more formal commitments - devoting hundreds of hours to serve on school boards and commissions, helping service clubs and non-profits.

And the dozens more who do smaller good deeds - giving back as they're able, and just because they can.

In fact, in the heart of the world's most giving country (according to this year's “World Giving Index”), Iowa tops the charts in volunteering. That's pretty cool.

Do some of us suffer? Can we do better? You bet. And we should try.

But that doesn't mean we're not lucky; it doesn't diminish the mountain of things going right.

So here's my wish for you: Sunday, while bonding with loved ones - around a tree, over Chinese food and a movie, or wherever you are - I hope you run out of numbers trying to count, for a change, all the things that are going just fine.

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jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net