Reasons to be Cheerful
Reasons to Be Cheerful is an online magazine founded by musician and activist David Byrne. It shares inspiring, solutions-oriented stories highlighting positive developments and innovative approaches to global challenges. The platform covers a wide range of topics, including environmental sustainability, social justice, urban design, health, and culture, emphasizing practical, replicable solutions that are making a difference. Reasons to Be Cheerful aims to counterbalance the often negative news cycle by showcasing stories of progress, resilience, and creativity. The website encourages readers to engage with and support these initiatives, fostering a sense of hope and empowerment. It also offers a newsletter to deliver uplifting content directly to its audience.
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Building Empathy Through the Sounds of ‘a World in Motion’
In February 2025, in the shadow of the Israel-Hamas War with its rising death toll and humanitarian crisis, a small audience in a library in Chicago experienced the war’s heartbreak, one note at a time. A classical string quartet played Lao Rahal Soti (“If My Voice Departs”) with the lyrics:...
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Connecting With Nature Helps Black Women Have Healthier Pregnancies
This article was originally published by Healthbeat, a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company and KFF Health News. At the start of her pregnancy with her now 10-month-old daughter, Marica Lowe was consumed by fear. She was so worried for her safety and that of her...
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What We’re Reading: Wimbledon Balls Become Homes for Tiny Mice
Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Let us know what you think at info@reasonstobecheerful.world. Mice and men What happens to the 55,000 tennis balls used at Wimbledon every year? According to a Country Living story shared by RTBC Contributing Editor Geetanjali Krishna, some...
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A ‘Truer, Messier’ Way of Knowing the Mississippi River
One week into the fall 2023 River Semester, a study away program stewarded by the Mississippi River Open School (MROS), Professor John Kim was on the brink of quitting. Nine college students and eight staff had just embarked on a 100-day educational journey, traversing the Mississippi River Basin by boat...
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The Aromatic Roots Indians Turn to for Cooling Relief
During the scorching summers in Bharuch, a city on India’s west coast, Anjali Choudhary’s drawing room on the ground floor became unbearably hot. With no air conditioning and temperatures surging to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, it was difficult even to sit in the room, she says. Then, last summer, Choudhary came...
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Homeless San Diegans Are Bicycling Toward Independence
On a sunlit Thursday morning in downtown San Diego, the sidewalk in front of Father Joe’s Villages buzzes with an excited energy. Nearly two-dozen people, dressed in everything from street clothes to aerodynamic Lycra, gather around a lineup of bicycles and tricycles. Among them are experienced riders from local clubs...
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Albuquerque’s Route 66 Motels Are Turning Into Affordable Housing
This story originally appeared in High Country News. As a housing crisis pummels the American West, from Sun Valley, Idaho, to Tucson, Arizona, there’s a dull irony in the number of abandoned houses and old hotels. Some of them cluster around former mining boomtowns; Bannack, Montana, for instance, was briefly...
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What We’re Reading: Plastic Bag Bans Are Working
Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Let us know what you think at info@reasonstobecheerful.world. Pack your bags In recent years, many U.S. cities and states have implemented plastic bag bans or fees. And now, according to a story Contributing Editor Michaela Haas shared...
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Oysters Are Breathing Life Into the Chesapeake Bay
It would be a quiet and peaceful morning at the edge of the Choptank River in Cambridge, Maryland, if not for the forklifts racing around the pier, scraping five-foot-tall metal cages along the ground as they go. It’s early May and the sun is just beginning to burn off the...
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In Zion National Park, ‘the Smog Is Gone’
Beneath red temples of Navajo sandstone, the Virgin River winds through Zion National Park. Nearby, a steady current of people step into a long shuttle line. A bus quietly rolls into the stop, the door opens, 90 people swiftly board. After the bus rolls away, the line continues to lengthen....
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