20 Reasons Why 2019 Was a Great Year

By December 31st, most people I know were exhausted. They were worn down and worn out.

Drinking poison will do that to you. As I wrote fourteen months ago:

By 5 am, I had committed to not look at Twitter again for the day. If I continued to drink its poison, I would have been in a mood. I would have been off. I would have been slightly more pessimistic, slightly more cynical about the world.

Like social media, headlines are exhausting and intoxicating. They are mini drugs, and we are attention addicts. Only the next one – stronger, more outrageous – will help you forget about the last one.

If you looked beyond the headlines, though, you would see a different, positive story. You would see significant advances in long-term pollution, literacy, disease, and gender equality.

As we start the next decade, the world is improving in big, important ways. This is truest in parts of the world that need it most.

Time listed 20 ways the world improved in 2019. The full list is reproduced below.