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There seems to be a strong focus on negativity in our world. This is nothing new and I’m certainly not the first person to note it. Our news media sensationalises negative dirt bags and low life scum who prey on the innocent and weak and we love to sit in our armchairs and preach judgement.

Are we really better than them? Do we have the right to judge? Just because we didn’t rape or murder or sexually harass?

Humans are awesome. As the Cycling Maven puts it – cracking humans! I was essentially inspired by his last vlog to write this. You don’t need to watch it – unless you are a cycling fan! In which case it is a must! Subscribe to his awesome vids.

As he succinctly puts it there are a few douches out there but most humans are awesome. I was inspired by the example from his ride in the 2017 Indie Pac when it was cancelled and he was just outside of Adelaide just how many people responded with genuine offers of help.

Recently I have also been inspired by helping some people myself and seeing just how many people also just love to help in some way. We recently helped a lady who had been in a domestic violence situation move from a shelter to her own home. A large group of diverse people largely unknown to each other came together to offer furniture, their time helping, money for a ute and trailer, money for fuel and for no benefit to themselves, just to purely help another human in need.

Humans are awesome.

Negativity sucks. Yet so many people don’t understand this and constantly live in a cesspit of negative emotions, people and scenarios. I’m not pretending to be a guru, but I do not live in that world and I want to be able to help people who do.

So why are people negative? No idea. Really, I don’t. But I do know that negativity promotes and perpetuates negativity. Eh what? I’ll say it again.

Being negative keeps you being negative.

It’s harder in my opinion to be positive than to be negative. You must sometimes force yourself to be positive when it’s easier to whinge at life’s circumstances, other people or situations you find yourself in. But here’s what I have noticed about negative people. The more they complain about undesirable things that happen (and I'm not talking about major disasters (like breaking your nail)) the more undesirable things happen. In fact, the same undesirable things happen over and over – almost every day – to some people I know.

I can guarantee the response to my question of “how’s your day going?” on the phone to one friend – it is ALWAYS “shithouse”. And then he lives out his prediction, and generally the first 60 seconds of the phone call is him telling me what happened that was bad. Its nearly always the same things, traffic, bills, workload, other people dumping things on him, things “outside his control” etc.

These same “bad” things happen to me most days as well. If I choose to drive in rush hour traffic (I generally don’t for a reason) then I choose to accept the fact that I'm in it, find something good to listen to on the radio or use the time to call people, or sometimes just dwell with my own thoughts and wrestle problems over in my mind. I choose to be positive about the time I'm spending in the car (even though I may not actually like it) and not go all negative and complain about it. Essentially, I see it like this. FACT: I am going to be in the car as long as it takes to get where I am going. OPTION: I can choose to grumble and complain about this (including poisoning other people’s lives with my complaining about something that didn’t even happen to them afterwards) OR I can choose to find a positive happy way to deal with the situation. Often, I’ll just be mellowing out to the music on the radio when stuck in traffic enjoying the chance to have a compulsory relax for a while.

I'm pretty sure I am a better person when I get out of the car at the end of that drive for it. I remember road rage and its ugly.

So back to the humans are awesome thing.

There are some douchbags and dropkicks out there gaining media attention and making it seem like the world is a crummy place. That’s a negative way to look at it. I think there are lot more awesome people out there being awesome, giving up their time, money and resources to help others, being positive and showing positivity in bad situations and not dwelling on the negative things.

I want to encourage you to be an awesome human today.

I'm going to tell just one little story, partly because I'm really proud of my photography, and mostly because Michelle is an AWESOME human.

I met Michelle years ago and photographed her when she was a super fit young mum. See the first photo. Since then she has had breast cancer, had a double mastectomy and of course suffered through the hell associated with chemo and all that goes along with that. Negative stuff. Happens to lots of people. Nothing overly special there. Michelle is however an inspirational person who took it upon herself to liven up the chemo place with her neon tutu, and is now using the power of the tutu and positivity to help and encourage others also going through the tough times of breast cancer. She really wants to help women not feel pressured to have reconstructive breast surgery. She has chosen not to and understands there is a real societal pressure for women to have breasts.

So, we got to do a wonderful photoshoot with her and a male friend of mine Russell who has also had breast cancer and had a mastectomy.

So why not be an awesome human like Michelle and think how can I find the good, the positive, the best outcome from this situation or place I'm in? How can I be a joy to others and not a wet blanket of misery?

I think it was an interesting title for this post – at least I hope you think so, and I hope I explained it as well. In part this post was an attempt to write something personal once again on this blog. I write so much technical stuff (mostly not on this blog anymore) that I don’t seem to have time to write something non-technical. Nowadays social media rules so much that often personal information is given in unrelated disjointed twitter size sound bites.

So hopefully you are going to be an awesome human and go splash some positivity around you – especially to the negative people in your life – it might just rub off!

The second one just proposed to her boyfriend – and he said yes.

Interesting times.

There are now rings on fingers, lots of conversations and plans being made for weddings – even though the projected date is September 2018.

Here are some pics I did for them to commemorate the engagement.

I shoot a lot – and well over 1.2 million photos. So its rare that i get a photo that to me is outstanding – though I do love what I do and I work hard on every shoot. Still there are moments when you just know you got a photo that is amazing. At least to me.

So here’s some work I am particularly proud of. Seems to be a common theme that most of them were shot on the Canon 85mm F1.8 prime lens.

Here are some interesting links and reviews from this weeks reading and research.

Far Cry 3 preview – reviewed by Fidget from fragdolls – I loved Far Cry 1 and 2 – cant wait for 3.

Assassin’s Creed 3 preview – reviewed by Cryptik from fragdolls – I have played and loved every Assassins Creed game so far – cant wait for this one!

Windows 8 and Metro Development – great explanation of Metro for Windows 8 by Damana.

Skydrive has now launched apps for Windows and Mac. We have tested the Windows one extensively and are now implementing it as a cloud backup strategy for small home users.

We love Photosynth. I have yet to install and play with the new Photosynth app on a Windows phone – but will try it later and let you know how it goes. There is also a Photosynth iPhone app available

Australia’s Labor government is about to start stealing money off us with a Carbon Tax – explained away by insisting that global warming is caused by human emitted CO2. The video here shows the fallacy of this “science”.

Social Media Links

Social Media use is on the rise on a massive way. Companies and businesses are still learning if and how to get involved. Here are a number of great articles.

Dion Hinchcliffe writes an excellent article titled Should companies drive their traffic to Facebook?

I wish this social media course run by Laurel Papworth was coming to Brisbane. Sydney people go and learn!

26 Tips for Integrating Social Media Activities – lots of good info here. Worth a read.

5 Reasons you should measure Social Media Return on Investment

5 Ways to tell if Pinterest is right for your business. We have started using Pinterest; watch for our boards to grow and expand as we learn more about this cool new tool.

Facebook Adds Admin Roles – a good explanation of the role settings and use.

5 Simple Metrics to Track Your Social Media Efforts