By JENNIFER MOONEY

There is lot’s to feel badly about. Nora Ephron wrote that she felt badly about her neck. Aging creates new lumps, bumps, lines, and dark spots that seem to come about overnight.

We wonder is it cancer and then – no I just don’t look as I once did. And the smarter among us are grateful to walk the planet for another day. It’s fairly certain that Nora would have happily watched her neck age for a few more years.

Life in 2013 seems to be a barrage of “bad news.” As a child of a media career, I got to be part of the team that gave birth to cable channels run amuck. We espoused how great to have so much news, entertainment and information. We called it “choice, convenience and control.” We boasted that folks could take it all with them via mobile and nothing would be missed.

Nothing, but maybe “being where we are now” instead of being glued to a talking head.

Sunday, April 22^nd The New York Times featured an article about Sonja Lyubornirsky, psychologist, professor and “queen of happiness.”

She studies why certain individuals are happier than others. Simply, those who treat others decently (at home and in the workplace) are the nation’s happiest. There is something to living life on a positive, giving and optimistic plane.

And in these dark days it’s all too easy to be cynical, angry, entitled and generally ticked off.

Things just may not have turned out the way we anticipated.

But, did they ever?

Once we get to be a certain age, we play life backwards and it all looks like it was some sort of a plan.

And if we had only — if we had only — you know the story.

At that age we know more about how it all might turn out. It’s easy to transfer this sort of negativity to others.

Those who might still have a sense of idealism.

Many view the 60’s as the epitome as “movement-based” living.

Joy to the world, free living and “love the one you’re with” permeated the national consciousness. Smart advertisers created campaigns that tapped into this unbridled sense of world peace — and, at the same time, the cold war breathed at our backs. Our world had as many pitfalls then as now. But maybe (sans 24-hour connectively) we just didn’t know how bad things really were.

Or ask the people who survived the Great Depression how optimistic they found their future to be.

We sit in an industry that crafts communications. We align the words and images to impact the consumer. We dig deep into the brain of the public and connect to what matters to them. We feel their pain, their joy, their stress and their decision-making. We are they.

We observe Nora Ephron, who, in her last and most painful years arguably went into overdrive and delivered some of her best theatre to the world posthumously.  Month’s later, tragedy strikes one of our great cities – once again. We witness humans called together to stand tall for Boston. Optimistic, young and free.

24 hour news and information, anywhere and anytime is the fabric of our times. Maybe we who create those interstitial moments (sometimes called advertising) that hearken back to those times with a few peace signs and broad smiles dominated the conversation.

Maybe we can mitigate the constant drone of sorrow and sadness.

Dr. Lyubornirsky might instruct that if we simply behave better, more thoughtfully and with more compassion – we might actually feel better. We can overcome whatever it is that ails us by being part of the outside world –by making a difference.

Or as the late Davy Jones reminds us – we can “feel groovy too.”