I was raised to be a news junkie.

From a young age I was trained to watch the news every day and, as I got older, to read the papers. NPR, BBC, the AP and various local publications show up in my RSS feed every morning. Admittedly, I may not make my way through them all every single day, but I make an effort to stay informed. Once a month or so I get handed a backlog of Time or Newsweek magazines from a familial benefactor.

I like to stay informed. Sadly, for the most part, staying informed means keeping on top of a variety of unpleasant statistics and news stories. While it is undoubtedly true that great and terrible things happen every day in the world, that is not all that happens, but those sorts of things do not get regularly reported.

But sometimes they do.

Take the next four minutes to allow yourself the joy of hearing a fast-paced recital of many of the good things that have taken place in the last year:

Divorce rates are down; unintended pregnancy rates are down; infant mortality rates are down, poverty rates are down, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Let’s start the year with a little positivity!

John Green got most of his statistics from the UN and Human Progress websites.

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Editor: Bryonie Wise

Image: Wikimedia