The Story Behind Make It A Better Day: How a 30-Year Vision Came to Life

Some ideas refuse to die. Make It A Better Day (MIABD) is one of them—a vision of helping people create better lives that was born in the early days of the internet, dismissed as ahead of its time, and finally brought to life three decades later.

The Early Days

The spark came during a telecommunications project in the early 1990s. While working on an ISDN implementation for an upscale community that wanted to create online communication for their residents, I saw a bigger possibility: an online community dedicated to helping people make their days better. Not just another social platform, but a space where people could find practical ways to improve key areas of their lives.

I wrote up a paper describing this vision and shared it with my management. Though the idea was dismissed – after all, this was when the Internet was just getting started and many thought it was just a fad – I couldn’t let it go. The potential to help people create positive change, even in small ways, felt too important to abandon.

Persistence Through Challenges

Life has a way of throwing curveballs, and mine came in waves: divorce, job loss, remarriage, a house fire, child issues, moving to a new state, starting a business, the Great Recession, and bankruptcy. Through all these challenges, I kept thinking about Make It A Better Day – perhaps because I really needed some better days myself. But time and energy were in short supply.

Everyone I shared the MIABD concept with encouraged me not to give up. The question was always “How?” How would I find the time, resources, or help needed to bring this vision to life?

A New Chapter

Retirement brought an unexpected opportunity. After 18 months of well-earned rest, boredom set in, and with it came a desire to learn and create again. The technology landscape had transformed – tools that were once out of reach were now accessible and affordable.

While playing with Canva, I created what would become the MIABD logo almost by accident. After years of spending money and unsuccessful attempts, the perfect design emerged effortlessly. It felt like a sign that it was time to revisit the project.

Adapting the Vision

I realized that while creating a full online community might be too ambitious for one person, I could still achieve the core mission: helping people have better days. My experience with AI in my telecommunications career led me to explore how new tools like ChatGPT could help bring MIABD to life.

Working with AI brought its own set of challenges – yes, it’s artificial, intelligent… well, not always. These challenges led to a whole other project and website called “Logic Need Not Apply” – but that’s a story for another day and project.

Over several months, I developed a plan and process that centered on a key idea I’d had from the beginning: taking meaningful subjects, finding quotes that captured their essence, and creating content that helps people make positive changes in their lives.

Making It Real

The journey from concept to reality wasn’t always smooth, but each challenge helped refine the vision. After eight months of intensive work – often putting in longer hours than before retirement – Make It A Better Day finally launched. While my AI “friends” helped streamline the process, it was still a labor of love, bringing to life an idea that had lived in my heart for over 30 years.

Welcome to Make It A Better Day

This journey has taught me that when you believe in something, you find a way to make it happen, even if it takes decades and doesn’t look exactly like your original vision. Today’s MIABD might not be the full online community I first imagined in the 1990s, but its mission remains unchanged: helping people create better days for themselves and others.

If this project helps make even one person’s or animal’s day better, then every step of this 30-year journey will have been worth it. Thank you for being part of this story, and welcome to Make It A Better Day.