Shop
 Explore 

10 things that made us smile this week

From a smooch-loving doggo to a match made on Duolingo to an adorable daddy-daughter duet, this week's list of things that made us smile is bringing the joy.

man kissing dog, groom and bride, dad and baby girl smiling

Buitengebieden/Twitter, Duolingo/Instagram, @lif3ofloco/Instagram (via Upworthy)

Upworthy's weekly roundup of joy

I recently sat down with Rainn Wilson to talk about his book, "Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution," for the Upworthy Book Club, and one of the things we talked about was cynicism. We live in a world where it's so easy to be cynical, to toss up our hands and say, "People suck, so why bother?"

However, when we become cynical, we allow the negative forces in the world win. So what do we do instead?

Wilson posits that the opposite of cynicism isn't optimism, but joy. Optimism too easily becomes "toxic positivity," which is insensitive to the real difficulties people face. But as Wilson writes, joy "doesn't disregard the hard stuff. Joy knows that negativity is a part of life as well. Joy says that life is hard but there is a place you can go, a tool you can use. Joy is a force. A choice. Something that can be harnessed. A decision to be made."

There are lots of ways to foster joy in our lives, from being of service to others to spending time with loved ones to appreciating nature to finding wholesome reasons to smile and laugh.

Joy is powerful, and however small a measure of it this week's roundup provides, I hope it helps you battle away cynicism and offers some hope and peace to your soul.

1. Doggo makes it crystal clear that she wants allll the kisses.

— (@)

Her communication couldn't be clearer even if she could talk.

2. You never know what a random act of kindness means to the person on the receiving end

See on Instagram

"If it's on your heart to do something nice for someone, just do it." Words to live by.

3. Older skater holds younger skater's hand to help with a trick and his reaction when he lands it is priceless.

Skateboarding has really created such an awesome, supportive community. Read the full story here.

4. Two strangers met on Duolingo when he kept congratulating her on her progress. Now they're married.

See on Instagram

What an adorable real-life meet cute!

5. Couple raises over $37,000 for a kid who came by their house looking for someone to befriend

@brennanray
Its takes 2 seconds to make someones day, you never know what people are going through until you get a chance to talk to them. This young man is well mannered, kind, and brave. So tiktok can we help shayden make some friends???#fyp #bekind #nobullying #love #kindness #letschangetheworld

It takes a lot of courage to ask for help and to put yourself out there, especially when you've been bullied. This kiddo may not have found any kids his age at the Ray home, but he did find some kind neighbors who wanted to help him out and raised over $37,000 for him and his family in a GoFundMe. Read the full story here.

6. Dad and baby singing their ABCs together doesn't really get any cuter

See on Instagram

That little finger. So precious.

7. Cat insists on human doing its makeup…kind of

— (@)

Let's get this cat together with the chihuahua in the first video and see what happens.

8. Accidental speech-to-text is the absolute best, but especially when you're talking to a dog

See on Instagram

"Got to poop, little poopster?"

9. A raucous piano solo turned into a rockin' dance party at the mall

Staged? Eh, perhaps. Fun and joyful to witness? Most definitely.

10. If you're baking in the July heat, take some cool inspiration from this happy polar bear

See on Instagram

Are you feeling the joy? Would you like more of it? Get these smiley-worthy posts delivered to your inbox each week by signing up for our free email newsletter, The Upworthiest, here.

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul|YouTube

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

Keep ReadingShow less

switched at dog daycare

Woman 'kidnaps' her baby to teach lazy husband a scary lesson

Did she go too far?

via Kroshka_Nastya/Freepik

A guy passes out on his bed eating pizza.

A 29-year-old woman had a baby girl, and after a brief maternity leave, she had to return to work. She couldn't afford childcare, so her husband, 35, reluctantly agreed to watch the baby while she was at work.

“It’s important to know that he’s been unemployed since 2021,” the woman wrote on Reddit’s AITA subforum. “He receives benefits. It’s also important to know that he’s extremely lazy. He doesn’t cook, clean, or help out in any way. I was nervous about leaving her home with her father, but I had no choice.”

The mother had reason to be worried about leaving her baby home alone with her husband, but in the beginning, things seemed fine. “When I came back from work, she was clean and sleeping. The next few times I came home, he was either playing with her, feeding her, or out for a walk with her. I was happy,” she wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less

Mom has the perfect response to teen son who refuses to do 'girl' chores

What exactly are "girl" chores, anyway?

via Krampus Production/Pexels

A boy doing the dishes.

A 41-year-old mom with 3 boys, 12-year-old twins, and a 10-year-old, pays them $10 daily to do their chores. However, their pay is deducted $10 if they miss a day. The boys have to do their tasks 5 days a week, although it doesn’t matter which days they choose to work.

“This system has worked swimmingly for us since it started, the boys have always complied with completing their chores,” the mom wrote on Reddit.

Her 12-year-old son was getting ready to play Fortnite with a friend and told him he’d be ready in 15 minutes once he finished his chores. When the boys started playing the game, he told the friend he was in charge of dusting and sweeping the stairs, to which the friend responded, “It’s a good thing my parents don’t make me do girl chores.”

After learning what the friend said, the mom told her son that chores are genderless.

Keep ReadingShow less

Women do better when they have a group of strong female friends, study finds

We're stronger together.

Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

Keep ReadingShow less

Voice recordings of people who were enslaved offer incredible first-person accounts of U.S. history

"The results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting, almost unbelievable. The idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful—as startling, really—as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee speak." - Ted Koppel

Library of Congress

When we think about the era of American slavery, many of us tend to think of it as the far distant past. While slavery doesn't exist as a formal institution today, there are people living who knew formerly enslaved black Americans first-hand. In the wide arc of history, the legal enslavement of people on U.S. soil is a recent occurrence—so recent, in fact, that we have voice recordings of interviews with people who lived it.

Keep ReadingShow less