For every 8 deaths, 19 lives are born.

19 beautiful lives, who will grow up and (hopefully) do great things.

19 lives who have the option to choose between two ways to live: glass half-empty, or glass half-full— choosing negativity or positivity, pessimist or optimist.

My hope is that every single one of those lives will choose the latter option. But, the reality is there will be many that choose the first option. I will admit, I am completely biased seeing as I am basically the textbook definition of a glass half-full type of person. Others think the exact opposite, and in all terms of inclusion, that’s okay.

What’s not okay is when people spread their negativity, bringing others down along with them.

Recently, a person who I have never talked to before, nonetheless even met before, told me this, word for word: “Stop smiling. You shouldn’t be happy all the time in this day and age.”

I know I shouldn’t have let these words affect me, I didn’t even know the name of the guy who told me this. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him for days, wondering why someone who doesn’t even know me cared so much about the smile on my face.

His words made me think about the world we live in now, or as he put it, “this day and age”. We live in a world plagued with negativity, fueled by people full of enmity towards everything and everyone. And the worst part is, this is considered okay. This is considered “normal”.

I get it— it’s hard to stay positive when there seems to be so much turmoil going on every single day. Going through the news, it’s hard to find stories that don’t make the world seem like it’s in a constant state of fiery chaos, and looking around, it has certainly affected many peoples viewpoints on life. But for as much negativity as there seems to be in the world, there’s greater amounts of positivity.

While it’s important to recognize all the bad things in the world, it’s also important to recognize all the positive things in the world, all of the awe-inspiring things that oftentimes go unnoticed. People get so caught up in the eight lives lost, that so many forget to appreciate the 19 new lives.

As a society, we should all be looking to bring each other up, to make each other better, to help each other out. We shouldn’t bring others down, or berate them for being happy. We should relish in each others happiness to make ourselves, and everyone around us better. We all have to live in this world together, so the least we could do for each other is try to put a smile on each others faces.

I know that every single person in the world is not going to magically turn into an optimist, and that we need pessimists in the world to help neutralize things, so everything just doesn’t turn in to unicorns and rainbows. But I also know that the happier people are, the better the world will be for everyone in it, regardless of how full or how empty your glass is.