Around the world, we watched in silence, as the Norway massacres unfolded last month. But some did more than just watched; they risked their lives for others, like this German man.

On Friday, a gunman took the lives of 86 people on Norway’s Utoya Island. It’s an unspeakable tragedy—yet the damage may have been far worse if not for the heroic acts of Marcel Gleffe, a German tourist who was camping on the mainland nearby when the shots began to ring out.

At first, he thought the sounds might have been fireworks—but when he saw the plumes of smoke from the gunfire, he knew that the situation was deadly. Even so, he didn’t hesitate to get involved.

Gleffe raced his motorboat over to the island, where he found a group of people in the water. Some of them had already been shot, and were in serious condition. He threw out life jackets, and helped as many of them as possible climb into his boat to return to the mainland, taking those with the worst injuries first.

Police hadn’t responded yet, so Gleffe was the first rescuer on the scene. He made four or five trips before the police arrived and told him they no longer required assistance.

Gleffe knew that the gunman was still roaming the island when he made his rescue missions, but he was prepared to risk his own life to save as many people as he could. Altogether, he rescued 30 people.

“I just did it on instinct,” he told the Telegraph. “You don’t get scared in a situation like that, you just do what it takes. I know the difference between fireworks and gunfire. I knew what it was about, and that it wasn’t just nonsense.”

Source: Gimundo

Sometimes when the world becomes too overwhelming, we must go within and rediscover that quiet, still center. Retreat and replenish by relishing in your own stillness.

“Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.”

Hermann Hesse

“Through return to simple living Comes control of desires. In control of desires Stillness is attained. In stillness the world is restored.”

Lao Tzu

“No thought, no action, no movement, total stillness: only thus can one manifest the true nature and law of things from within and unconsciously, and at last become one with heaven and earth.”

Lao Tzu

“Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form.”

Eckhart Tolle

“It is the stillness that will save and transform the world.”

Eckhart Tolle

“I am glad that so much movement happens in this stillness.”
Richard Land

“The stillness in stillness is not the real stillness; only when there is stillness in movement does the universal rhythm manifest.”

Bruce Lee

“Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.”

Aldous Huxley

Let me tell you a little about Only Positive News: we get a big response from our readers. When I first started writing here, I thought, “Who is going to read about good stuff?” Apparently, quite a few! We rank on Google in the top three for “positive news”, which isn’t shabby.

We also get a good amount of outreach from our fans. The Yay Life Tribe just reached out to us and told us about their new website, chockful of positive advice for your every day.

Here’s an excerpt:

Do you love where you live?

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Tucker Gumber

Do you love where you live? It seems like a simple question but it really can be a tough one. We live where we live based on a few things like- it’s where I grew up, it’s where my job is, it’s what I can afford. Lots of times we even live somewhere because it’s close to where we want to be. Whatever the situation is be thankful that you have a place to live all.

What about all of the great things about where you live that often get forgotten. Maybe it’s a small town and there is an actual sense of community. Maybe it is a large town and there is a variety of restaurants. Maybe it is cheaper than all of the surrounding areas. When you really start to think about all of the awesome little things in your area you might start to like it.

Another thing that helps you learn to love where you live is to become an expert of the area. Go out and learn the best hiking trails, coffee shops, happy hours, and anything else that makes for a fun time.

If you have tapped all of the resources and still can’t seem to love the place you live then you should move. One thing I am realizing more and more is that we only get one life to live so we better make it count. Life is simply too short to spend your days waiting for someone to make you happy. Take control and try and figure out what exactly it is you want out of life and go for it.

So there you have it. We should all love the place we live because we live there. If you can’t seem to find happiness in your area you should move. Whatever the situation is just remember that you can control it. You can change or improve things if you really want to.

Yay like you don’t know how to stop,
Tucker

Many times, when we read self-help books, they may contribute to breaking old patterns, but sometimes they sound so stale and rote! I discovered this blog in Psychology Today this morning that suggests some very imaginative, visual ways to stop obsessive thinking. Don’t you find these work a bit better? They appeal to our child side. (Or at the very least, are a little more fun.)

Sweep, Sweep, Sweep

Imagine that your mind is a small, wooden-floored room that keeps getting all dusty and dirty with your negative thoughts. Now visualize a tiny, inch-high cleaning lady snoozing in the corner of the room, an old-fashioned twig broom leaning against her chair.

When your thinking drifts back into dangerous territory, wake her up and urge her to “sweep, sweep, sweep” away those pesky thoughts! Imagine her working away furiously, tidying up the floor, sweeping all that unwanted muck out the door and making the place spic ‘n span.

Barking Dog
This simple but effective trick helps you separate yourself from intrusive thoughts.

Imagine that you’re walking down the street and you see a dog chained up to a fence next to the sidewalk, barking wildly at you. Continue on your way down the street knowing that the racket he’s making, which represents the cacophony of thoughts in your head, can’t hurt you. It’s just noise. Hold your head up and keep on walking.

We’d like to thank Michele, one of our readers, for this suggestion. Keep ‘em coming!

Tom Nardone is the founder of the Detroit Mower Gang.

Nardone started the group just under a year ago to mow parks in the city of Detroit, many of which have fallen victim to budget cut backs.

“We’ve done about a half dozen parks including the Veledrome at Outer Drive and Mound Road,” Nardone told WWJ’s Marie Osborne.

The Mower Gang is now in the process of replacing swings at a number of City of Detroit parks. Their next event is July 16th, when the group plans to mow a park in the dark. Nardone said the group is only out to supplement what the city can’t do.

To find our more about the Mowergang, including how you can join, visit this link.

Members of the group show up at the appointed park with riding lawn mowers or weed whackers and proceed to clean up the park. Members who don’t have a mower are given one.

“There are about 90 parks in the city of Detroit and each one could use a little help,” said Nardone. The group sends out notices through their Facebook page.

Source: CBS News

Home is where the heart is…or is it? Home can mean many different things to people.

Here’s a sampling:

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.
Mother Teresa

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya Angelou

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
Benjamin Franklin

At home I am a nice guy: but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.
Muhammad Ali

Say there’s a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter - for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that’s saying is that he’s living a fantasy life of rebellion.
Eminem

Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I’m tired.
Mae West

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.
Friedrich Nietzsche

I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.
Zig Ziglar

If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.
Audrey Hepburn

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
Robert Frost

Analogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home.
Sigmund Freud

If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

Dale Carnegie

I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.

Andy Warhol

A girl phoned me the other day and said… ‘Come on over, there’s nobody home.’ I went over. Nobody was home.
Rodney Dangerfield

What an amazing story of a community realizing a need and then stepping up to the plate to meet it. Read more about how you can help (at bottom of piece.)

Inside Whitney Elementary School in East Las Vegas, nearly 85 percent of the children are homeless. That’s 518 kids out of 610.

Learn more about the Whitney Elementary School

Principal Sherrie Gahn says, “I thought that I saw the ultimate poverty when I got here eight years ago and every year it has gotten worse and the recession made it ten times worse.”

Gahn knew she had a problem that a traditional public school could not fix. “When I saw the children eating ketchup for lunch, and wanting to take it home,” she says, “it just crushed me.”

So Gahn came up with a plan involving the kids, their parents and the community.

“I told the parents that I would give them whatever they need,” Gahn says. “All I need them to do is give me their children and let me teach them. In turn I will give you food and clothes and we will take them to the eye doctor. I will pay your rent, pay your utilities, but keep your child here.”

The children get free clothes, free bread to bring home and even free haircuts. Almost all of it given by 500 donors and local businesses who drop off donations daily. Gahn creates a wish list, and her army of volunteers makes it happen.

The contributions are large and small. One woman in Philadelphia sends $20 per month. A gambler gives $2,000 monthly - a portion of his earnings. This is Vegas.

Las Vegas has long been the city of bright lights and broken dreams. But especially now - with 12.1 percent unemployment, and the highest foreclosure rate in the country. One in every nine households receives a foreclosure notice.

Like most of her classmates, Charlee lives in one of the many rundown crime-ridden motels in the shadow of the Vegas strip.

Her family lost its home to foreclosure three years ago. Her father Chad is a construction worker. He hasn’t had a fulltime job in two years.

“There is not a lot of people moving dirt right now in the Vegas valley,” Chad says. “That’s what I do. That’s what I love to do.

As for Charlee, she dreams of being an actress. Principal Gahn has a bold dream of her own.

“I tell every 5th grade class if you make it through junior high you make it through high school and you can’t afford to go to college come see me and I will make sure that you go to college,” Gahn says. “We have a small trust fund that we started.”

Gahn says the children are worth the big promise. She defines success as “The look in their face that I made their life better. That’s my success rate when they hug me and thank me for the food, the clothes. Then I know it’s a good day.”

Today is especially emotional for Gahn - it’s the last day of class. Many of these kids and their families will be on their own until September. So next fall, she hopes to open an after-school program. So Charlee and her classmates can have a safe haven when the school day’s done.

Homeless children of the recession one year later

60 Minutes: Homeless kids: the hard times generation

60 Minutes: Hard times generation: How you can help

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/09/eveningnews/main20070437.shtml#ixzz1Pp650Mff

Please take a moment to watch this touching video of sportstar Ray Lewis, who is mentoring a child seriously in need: La’Shaun Armstrong.

Armstrong was in the vehicle that was driven into the Hudson River last month, along with his three younger siblings, by his mother. La’Shaun was the only survivor, escaping the vehicle through a passenger side window and swimming to safety.

The statistics speak for themselves. Kenyan children - especially girls - are susceptible to widespread abuse. But schools are a safe haven, where they can thrive and grow. This MSNBC story and accompanying video are well worth your time.

Dreams are a luxury few can afford in Kenya’s largest slum. That is, until you turn the corner, walk down a small alleyway and arrive at a bright pink and blue makeshift building. Little girls in bright red sweaters and bright blue skirts are running around, giggling and playing, indoors and out. And when you look at the mud on their shoes, or the tin houses that surround the school, you come to realize that 60 little girls are getting the chance of their lives and they know it. This is the Kibera School for Girls – a refuge from abuse and hunger. http://shininghopeforcommunities.org/projects/ksg/

Girls in Kibera generally don’t have a lot of reason to sing or play. Like most young girls in extreme poverty all over the world, they have little value in their communities. They mostly can’t afford school, are highly vulnerable to sexual crime at any early age and, up until recently, http://www.girlup.org/have received the least amount of attention from international NGOs. The cover of the ECONOMIST in 2010 was stark:  GENDERCIDE What happened to 100 million baby girls? http://www.economist.com/node/15606229

Maria Menounos and I were shocked by the statistics, especially because the solutions can be so simple.  If they are lucky enough to have access to a school, and to stay there, girls have less risk for exposure to HIV, are less likely to get married early or get pregnant, and are more likely to fight for their own rights, raise healthy children of their own and enter the workforce. This very concept has been highlighted in a compelling campaign by the NIKE foundation.  http://www.girleffect.org/video ‘The Girl Effect” campaign argues that girls can be game changers in the economic development of a country if they get help them bypassing the extreme challenges they face from birth. It’s also what many other organizations including CARE, the organization we traveled with, are focused on entirely. http://www.care.org/

Read more.

A friend of mine bemoaned her single status several nights ago over dinner. After a few glasses of wine and a heavenly dessert, we can up with a list of perks to being single. So this Wednesday, I dedicate these quotes to her, and to all the “singles” out there! May your dessert be delicious.

I’m dating a woman now who, evidently, is unaware of it.” - Garry Shandling

“You do not need to be loved, not at the cost of yourself. The single relationship that is truly central and crucial in a life is the relationship to the self. Of all the people you will know in a lifetime, you are the only one you will never lose.” - Jo Courdert

“I must learn to love the fool in me the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.” - Theodore Isaac Rubin

“You can explore the universe looking for somebody who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and you will not find that person anywhere.” - Unknown

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” - Walt Whitman

“He is his own best friend, and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude.” - Aristotle

“To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.” - Joseph Addison

“I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.” - Henry David Thoreau

“I’m single because I was born that way.” - Mae West

“Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.” - Sex in the City

“I don’t like to be labeled as lonely just because I am alone.” - Delta Burke

“He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” - Lao Tzu

“When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.” François de la Rochefoucauld

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” - Dr. Seuss

“By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation.” - Oscar Wilde

“Being single is pretty good. It’s a nice sense of irresponsibility.” - Michael Douglas

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” - Carl Jung

“I think, therefore I’m single.” - Liz Winston

“I don’t need a man to rectify my existence. The most profound relationship we’ll ever have is the one with ourselves.” - Shirley MacLaine

“Sometimes you have to stand alone to prove that you can still stand.” - Anonymous

“Maybe some women aren’t meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free till they find someone just as wild to run with them.” - Sex in the City