Discovering Reasonstobecheerful was a lifesaver. I discovered it on Oct 7, 2021, when I was feeling deeply hopeless about humanity.
Reasons to be Cheerful is a non-profit editorial project founded by artist and musician David Byrne. Through stories of hope, rooted in evidence, the project inspires us all to be curious about how the world can be better, and to ask ourselves how we can be part of that change.
“I know that things can seem pretty hopeless these days,” says David Byrne in the “about” video on the Reasons to be Cheerful website. “I often feel that way, too. So, a little while back I started looking for reasons to be cheerful. And believe it or not, I found some. I found a lot. And I had an idea: what if we started a project and brought some of those reasons to be cheerful into sharper focus.”
Not simply good ideas, but real, positive change that’s being made by people and communities all over the world. Change that might be copied. Replicated. Scaled up. Spread around.
Reasons to be Cheerful documents stories of solutions. It might even be a more accurate picture of the world than what we’re usually shown. These aren’t stories about how we wish things were. These are stories about how they are. Right now.