Health

Lunch breaks, tiny parks, and the case for touching grass at work

You may not need PTO, hiking boots, or even an hour to feel the difference.

When I think of “getting into nature,” I think of the whole production number that comes with it. Bug spray. Water bottles. Never enough sunscreen. Somehow, touching grass has started to feel like it requires a packing list.

But researcher Todd Lookingbill says we may be thinking about nature all wrong. In his story, he explores what happens when the outdoors becomes part of your regular workday instead of some elaborate weekend expedition.

The idea came into sharper focus while Lookingbill was studying urban landscapes in Denmark, where slipping outside during the day felt a lot less like an event. And what he found might make you look at that patch of green near your office very differently.

Do you have a GOOD picture to share?

Send us your best images, and we may feature them as the image of the day. Be sure to tell us a bit about your pic.

And what did we learn?

In yesterday’s issue, we covered the travel industry's glacial efforts to accommodate the growing segment of people who like to travel alone.

How do GOOD readers feel about traveling alone? More than a third of you say going solo is the best way! And another 22% would be happy to try it.

• I love it. My itinerary, my rules. (36.3%)

• I haven’t yet, but I’d absolutely try it. (21.9%)

• I could do it, but trips are better with company. (28.8%)

• Hard pass. I’d get lost on the way to the airport. (13.0%)

GOOD reader Little Crick makes a strong case for the plurality. “The ‘my itinerary, my rules’ says it all. Sleep, eat, plan, change plan, dress, arrive, leave as I please = freedom. Otherwise, a waste of my time and money.“

Education | Courtesy of Upworthy

Well-being

A question that's either romantic or a nightmare, depending on your brain

Your answer reveals more than you think.

If you had to do one thing on a loop for eternity, what would it be? Answers leap to mind, no doubt, but sit with that for a moment. Would you really want to do whatever it is you just thought of, on a loop, forever? That’s the conversation that exploded in the comments when a man asked the question on Instagram.

As Mark Wales reports, there's a reason this question hits different: it's borrowed from Nietzsche, who proposed the idea of "eternal recurrence" as a kind of ultimate life stress test. If you'd choose to live your life again, exactly as it is, forever, then you're living right. It sounds like a fun icebreaker until you actually start to do the math.

Science backs up the discomfort. Routines are good for us, studies show, right up until they're not. Repeating even a perfect experience eventually collapses into boredom and a creeping sense that time has stopped meaning anything. The question isn't really about eternity. It's about what you'd miss if you had to stop choosing.

So, what's your loop?

Who’s a GOOD boy/girl?

Image of the Day has its own lane, but the pet pics keep arriving, and I am not made of stone. So every Friday, I’ll share one reader-submitted photo of a favorite pet. Want yours featured? Send it along.

Today marks 25 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks, and we’d be remiss not to acknowledge a day that still carries enormous weight for so many people. This little corner of the newsletter has a different assignment, though: to look backward for the curious, ingenious, and unexpectedly consequential. So, with respect for what this date means, we’re turning our attention to another September 11 milestone, one involving a very humble invention that helped change the course of art.

On September 11, 1841, American portrait painter John Goffe Rand had a problem familiar to artists of his era: keeping oil paint from drying out. The prevailing solution was far less elegant than a trip to Michaels, artists often stored their paints in pig bladders, punctured them to squeeze out what they needed, then tried to seal them back up.

Rand had a better idea. On September 11, 1841, he received U.S. Patent No. 2,252 for a collapsible metal container that could dispense paint, be closed airtight, and used again. In other words: the ancestor of the modern squeeze tube.

Convenient? Absolutely. But the ripple effect was much bigger. Paint suddenly became much easier to preserve and carry, helping artists leave their studios with a ready-made palette. A few decades later, the Impressionists took full advantage, hauling their paints into gardens, cafés, and the countryside to capture changing light and color in real time. The National Gallery of Art specifically credits portable paint tubes, alongside the expanding rail system, with making those painting excursions practical.

So there’s a surprisingly straight line from “there has to be a better way than a pig bladder” to Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and some of the most beloved paintings ever made.

Do you have something GOOD to share?

We’re always on the lookout for uplifting, enlightening, and engaging content to share with readers like you. If you have something you think should be featured in the Daily GOOD, let me know!

💬 From the group text…

Combine an absolutely adorable child’s voice, charming animation, and a bit of interesting trivia, and you’ve got this fantastic little bit of internet.

Join the Group Text! Send us your social media gold.