Black Mamba. The very name sends a shiver down one's spine … well not to me, I like them quite a lot. It is not only a snake; it is the symbol of the African ecosystem, the African danger, an animate object that looks like a hypodermic needle that injects neurotoxicity that messes up your nervous system before you know it. Although they have quite a bad reputation, these snakes are not aggressive and will quickly move off if given the opportunity to do so. They have an impressive, high-gloss, ebony-like exterior; this is not an entity anyone would want to meddle with. It is a predator through and through, a society made, killing machine with lights and frozen to the bone. A lot of you guys don't even know why the heck it is called black mamba, even when its color is kinda like dark gray. You won't, unless you encounter one and get bitten ( Skull Emoji). Just kidding, inside their face, it's pitch black, and from there it got its name. Don't ever think of sprinting with them, you are sure to lose, the race, maybe your life, or who knows, maybe both. They are the fastest moving land snakes on earth, reaching a maximum speed up to 20-25 km/h. Thus the Black Mamba, a snake that hunts in the scorching sun while the night stages are associated with horror for most people. This is a sneak and swift; it camouflages itself with the darkness to attack with great vigor. It's not a beast of bluff; it's a hiss of the end; a voice of death for those who dare cross its path. I'd ask you to fear the snakes but also to understand them. It's not that the Black Mamba is evil; it's just that it is as much a victim of circumstances as is the frog and it is, in every sense of the word, a perfectly evolved killing machine in a world where killing is an intrinsic necessity. … (Just for, you know, if you ever need) If you get bitten, use Polyvalent antivenom.)

We all have a negativity bias. Those of us who live in the Western world have an inaccurate ideology in regards to the ‘impoverished' world. We conceive that things are getting worse. The media and organizations, who longing for donations, persuade us things are worse than they are. We conform to the ideas in mainstream media. After being subjected to hundreds of stories of people dying from inadequate healthcare, addictions, violent crime, natural disasters, poverty and starvation. What we do not see or hear about is how drastically these numbers are shrinking. Maybe crime has gone up in the last year, or 5 years, but as a whole, these numbers are shrinking. Maybe millions of people still live without electricity, or vaccinations, or education, or even basic human rights, but these numbers are shrinking. When we look at facts from the short term, we can get caught up on the numbers. We have to take a step back at look at not only numbers, but percentages in a population, or changes in numbers over the years. A number can be misleading when it is on its own. Look at statistics over the past 10, 20, or 50 years. Crime is diminishing, women are being educated, having smaller families and overcoming poverty. The world is not on a downhill spiral, the world is getting better. Millions of people work every day toward changes in our society, and it is not in vain. The ‘developed world', will soon just be ‘The World'. 80% of people in the world have some access to electricity. (Rosling, 2018) Even in low-income countries, 60% of girls finish at least primary schools. (Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2019) In the past 20 years, poverty has been cut in half. (Rosling, 2018) Child labor has decreased by 40 percent from 2000 to 2016. ("23 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better", 2019) Life expectancies have more than doubled in the past 50 years ("23 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better", 2019) Child mortality rates have halved since 1990. ("23 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better", 2019) We still have years of work ahead of us, but it is important for people to see the progress being made in the world today. To see what benefits their efforts, tax/donation dollars are reaping. We cannot sit by and believe everything is okay in the world, just as much as we cannot accept the lie that the world cannot be improved. Today's mainstream media focus on negative, and short term news. We do not see the long term improvements happening all the time, just more gradually. So many wonderful things are happening in the world, and improvements are constantly progressing. If you ever feel beaten down by negativity in the news, be mindful of the negativity bias, and remember that big changes do not happen overnight. Sources Rosling, H. (2018). Factfulness. [Place of publication not identified]: Flatiron Books. Roser, M., & Ortiz-Ospina, E. (2019). Primary and Secondary Education. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/primary-and-secondary-education 23 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2014/11/24/7272929/global-poverty-h ealth-crime-literacy-good-news