What is The Joyful Peach?
Updated: Jun 23, 2021
By Mehr Sohal
In our modern society, whenever one opens a newspaper or some form of digital/print media, the pages are flooded with horrifying stories and articles about current happenings around us. The issues in national news have become a rising cause of stress amongst the population; specifically the Generation Z with 75% of this community stressed over mass shootings; 62% concerned about suicide rates; and more (APA, 2018).
While I agree that this negativity is unavoidable, I believe that some extent of positivity is required amongst everything that is going on, to remain sane and happy individuals.
I mean, aren’t we all tired of opening the newspaper to see the pages flooded with tragic headlines? The picture below is a collection of all the gloom-ridden news in the Times of India newspaper of merely one day (TOI, Bangalore, December 6th 2019). Amidst the realms of this chaotic reality, have we possibly forgotten the fact that good things, too, do happen in life?
Data has proven that we, as human beings, are wired to dwell on, and put all our focus into stressing about the bad things in life– known as an “overdramatic worldview”. As academic Hans Rosling stated, “Our instinct to notice the bad more than the good is related to three things: the misremembering of the past; selective reporting by journalists and activists; and the feeling that as long as things are bad, it’s heartless to say they are getting better”. The media exploits our weakness of loving drama, gossip and rumors to grab our attention.
Hence, I have decided to ‘keep it real’ and give the community their much-needed daily dose of positive news on a platter. This is the exact purpose of ‘The Joyful Peach’– my news portal that strives to focus entirely on the happy events going on around us; that we usually overlook. I promise that my platform will not exploit your weaknesses!
However, much like any media platform, ‘The Joyful Peach’ is for anyone and everyone who is sick of the negativity seen in news; and is in need of a boost in dopamine and serotonin levels, especially now due to the doom and gloom of COVID-19!
About the Content
What do I mean by ‘happy’ content?
Well, obviously, the state of being happy entails satisfaction, contentment; and most importantly, a mind at ease. However, what we sometimes tend to forget is that happiness is subjective. For instance, a video of a dog playing with a monkey may leave Person A rolling on the floor with laughter. But the same video may not bring Person B joy if they coincidentally don’t like dogs and monkeys. And so, the point I am coming to is if you want to submit something to TJP that you think is happy, please do; and do not worry about whether or not your article/video/image would fall under the broad and loose umbrella of universal happiness.
The content for ‘The Joyful Peach’ doesn’t even necessarily have to always be, as the name suggests, joyful. There is no hard and fast rule that everything needs to put a smile on your face. For instance, a coverage on an awareness campaign for lake pollution may not have a happy connotation; but it is positive. Hence, in simple words, I believe that happy content can be absolutely anything, as long as it doesn’t leave one stressed, sad, or depressed. The content can be original content or one that you read somewhere else, everyone will be given credit for the content.
A very important thing that must be noted is that in this project, I will not be the sole producer of content. I hope to collect content from a network of friends, writers, and essentially anyone who has something happy to share. However, whatever is published will not be completely user-generated content; as each contribution to ‘The Joyful Peach’ will be filtered and closely edited to ensure that the work is of high quality. Furthermore, any facts that are possibly mentioned in articles will be verified with at least one other credible source; as TJP is not a believer of fake news. Fake news leads to an overdramatic worldview amongst readers…and escaping this vicious cycle is impossible.
