+
upworthy
More

It's how one woman coped with depression, and now it's a global movement of love.

The world always needs more love letters.

True
Letters of Peace


Five years ago, a woman named Hannah began writing anonymous letters to complete strangers.

After moving to New York, Hannah found herself battling depression. While there are many ways to cope with depression, Hannah's approach was both novel and obvious: She started writing, but not in a blog. Instead, she penned individual letters to strangers in the city.


"It's been nearly five years. Nearly five years since a letter, just like this one, turned my world upside down. I moved to New York City right after college. I did not expect something like depression would meet me in those city streets. That's the thing about depression though. You don't get to tell it when it comes and goes. It's an illness. That depression came to meet me and to try to cope, I started writing letters to strangers in this city. I started leaving them across Manhattan. I filled them with stories, questions, hopes, all the words I could not give myself at the age of 22."

But what began as a coping mechanism for Hannah has blossomed into a powerful campaign, reaching people across New York.

Her letters were no longer just about her story. People receiving them felt connected and inspired to reach out to others. Their voices joined hers in a chorus of acceptance and love. Anonymous bonds were built. There's something comforting about knowing that a complete stranger cares enough about humanity to reach out to other unknowns.

"Those letters spiraled into something so much larger than me, so much bigger than a girl who was writing and leaving letters for strangers, just because her mother had once done the same for her. That is always the most beautiful part of the story though. When the story stops being all about you and it has the chance to become the story that belongs to so many others. I spent a year writing letters to anyone who emailed me."

Hannah blogged about her letter-writing experience, asking a simple question: "Do you need someone to write you a love letter today?"

The responses that question generated transformed Hannah's anonymous letter-writing project — meant as a means to cope with her own depression — into the thriving, global community that is More Love Letters.

More Love Letters is where people can contribute to bundles of letters sent out to those in need of encouragement and hope.

"Those hundreds of first letters laid the foundation for what is now a community of thousands of ordinary people writing to someone who needs encouragement. It's called More Love Letters. It's a place on the internet where you can read the stories of strangers and write to them. Your letter will be one in hundred to show up at their door at a time when they need a push, a nudge, a reminder to just keep going. Maybe that is you."

Sometimes we need a little reminder that we are deserving of love. Sometimes we need a letter of our own.

Living with depression can be really hard. Depression lies. Depression harms. Depression kills. Sometimes it's really helpful to just hear some small words of encouragement to keep you going through it all, even when things get really bad. Hannah's project is one small, crucial way of giving that.

"Maybe you need the reminder today. Keep fighting. You deserve good things for your life. It sounds too simple, but it is amazing the number of people who believe that for other people, but not themselves. You deserve them too. All the good things. Don't settle. Don't give in. This world needs you. Don't quit."


A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

Keep ReadingShow less

An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

Keep ReadingShow less

A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

Keep ReadingShow less