Musician David Byrne, formerly of the new wave band Talking Heads, has made it his priority to keep positivity alive, especially during the pandemic. He’s put his music on hold to focus on a new non-profit editorial project called Reasons To Be Cheerful, which only publishes stories about good things happening in the world.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: why we’re so prone to the negativity bias; how it affects our decisions; and how to escape — even harness — it to rise above the fray.

It’s not a Pollyanna-ish excuse to spin positives out of a darkening world, so much as it is a conscious effort to explore where humanity is succeeding, when so much of the media is quick to focus on our failures.

Byrne is passionate about being a good citizen of the world, but like many, has struggled with current events. So, he created an online forum, “Reasons to Be Cheerful,” to spotlight the ways the world is working. Altschul asked, “Is that kind of where you are in your life now? Are you…

Does the day-to-day news cycle seem to be a constant stream of depressing stories that leave you sad for half the day? Reading articles can really start to bog you down if you are looking in the wrong places. So where can you go to find the positive influences in…

David Byrne has reasons to be cheerful. In fact, he has an entire website called Reasons to be Cheerful. It’s a solutions-based, online magazine of sorts, filled with uplifting success stories that may pull you out of your day-to-day frustrations. Another reason to be cheerful: David Byrne has taken his most…

In 2016 David Byrne started collecting stories about people who had found solutions for some of the world’s most pressing problems. Now he’s created a whole magazine devoted to the subject. Guest: Will Doig, editor, Reasons to be Cheerful Listen to the Australia Broadcast Corporation’s interview with Reasons to be…

Nearly two years after first announcing the project, David Byrne has launched an online magazine named Reasons to Be Cheerful that aims to be a “tonic for tumultuous times.” As the former Talking Heads singer explains in the introductory video, he founded the website – “part magazine, part therapy session, part blueprint for a better world” – where he can share “smart, proven, replicable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.”

Reasons to be Cheerful promises to be an ongoing editorial project that will grow and evolve over time. “We hope to balance out some of the amplified negativity and show that things might not be as bad as we think,” his statement continues.

Singer-songwriter David Byrne is a wholly separate entity from R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, but today the former Talking Heads progenitor has launched a project with the goal of making humanity shiner and happier.