The ocean is an incredible place. Its waters cover 70% of the Earth’s surface, and millions of species make the ocean home. Some of the creatures are tiny while others are positively enormous. Human beings love to play in the vast waters, and because the ocean can be pretty dark, we don’t always see the animals, and they don’t see us. Tavis Boise shared an incredible Instagram video of an unexpected encounter with a whale while hydrofoil-surfing. “What started as a normal downwind foiling session turned into something I’ll never forget. While riding out off the coast of Santa Barbara, a mom and baby Gray Whale surfaced right next to me. Close enough to get knocked off by the whale-wash,” Tavis shared on Instagram. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tavis Boise (@smallwavetav) The Whale Encounter Shocked the Surfer Tavis admitted that seeing a whale on a video or in a photo is nothing like seeing one in person.“It is easy to dream of these wildlife scenarios but once you are actually face to face with a whale, all plans go out the window. This was such a cool encounter and was less than 1/4 mile from shore,” Tavis wrote. Friends joked with Tavis about his wild whale surfing encounter. “Remind me to keep my distance from you when we are out on the water! I think you might be the wildlife magnet of SB,” someone wrote. This person shared a similar experience with a whale and lived to tell the tale. “I was keyboarding off Ledbetter once on a twin tip and I became right between the mother and the calf as they surfaced I was going about 20 miles an hour. It was one of the most insane moments of my life in the ocean,” they wrote. Tavis is braver than we are. We’ll stick to watching others surf with the whales. This story’s featured image can be found here

If you’re excited about World Cup Soccer and you love Chipotle, we’ve got a deal for you. The fast-casual chain is celebrating the start of the 2026 World Cup on June 11, 2026, with an exclusive deal. Anyone who enters a Chipotle restaurant wearing a soccer jersey after 3 p.m. will qualify for a buy-one-get-one free entrée. But that’s not all, Chipotle will also produce 53 limited-edition jerseys that loyalty members can win in the app. “Only 53 jerseys will be made available exclusively through the Chipotle Rewards Exchange for loyalty members in the U.S., with winners receiving their jerseys ahead of the tournament final. Chipotle Rewards members can exchange 10 points for a chance to win a jersey from June 10 through June 24. Fans can sign up for Chipotle Rewards at www.chipotle.com/rewards and earn free Chips and Guac with a qualifying purchase after joining,” Chipotle shared in a news release. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chipotle (@chipotle) Chipotle Fans Are Ready to Celebrate Soccer It’s no surprise that news of the exclusive Chipotle soccer deal and jerseys has people excited. “This couldn’t have came at a better time…ty,” a fan shared on Instagram. “Just canceled my Thursday Chipotle lunch plans to get it at dinner instead,” another fan shared. This person warned Chipotle that Thursday will be busy. “yall bout to be sold out,” they wrote. “Every four years, this tournament creates an unmatched sense of excitement, pride, and community among fans around the world,” Stephanie Perdue, Senior Vice President of Brand Marketing at Chipotle shared. “We wanted to celebrate the rituals that make the experience so memorable, from wearing lucky jerseys to gathering for matchday meals with Chipotle.” This story’s featured image is by Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Are you the type of person whose knee-jerk reaction to any uncomfortable moment is to apologize? Someone bumps into you on the train. “Sorry, I was in your way.” You give someone a gift. “Sorry if it doesn’t fit perfectly.” You cook dinner for the family. “Sorry if the meal is a bit late.” The constant apologizing, especially when you did nothing wrong, may come from a good place, but it can appear to be a symptom of a bigger problem. Over-apologizers appear to lack confidence and are constantly seeking reassurance. Worse, because they’re always calling attention to their own mistakes, they may appear to be incompetent. What to say instead of “I’m sorry” Melody Wilding, LMSW, says the key is to replace shame with gratitude. Instead of putting yourself down, thank others for accommodating you (if you did do something that genuinely inconvenienced them). Wilding is a professor of human behavior at Hunter College, an executive coach, a licensed social worker, and the author of Trust Yourself. A woman apologizing to her boyfriend. Photo credit: Canva “Saying ‘Thank you, let’s begin.’ is a more substantial way to acknowledge that your colleagues waited for you, for example,” Wilding writes at Psychology Today. “Emailing someone back to thank them for their helpful reminder or patience also feels much better than profusely apologizing for not getting back to them sooner.” Instead of: “Sorry for being late.”  Say: “Thank you for your patience.” Instead of: “Sorry, my house isn’t clean.” Say: “Thank you for accepting our family as we are.” Instead of: “Sorry for hearing me go on and on.” Say: “Thank you for listening.” Another good term to use in an uncomfortable situation is “pardon me” or “excuse me” for slight inconveniences, such as when you’re walking in front of people at a movie theater or have to get by with a shopping cart in a tight aisle at the grocery store. Switching “excuse me” for “I’m sorry” also helps stop the apology habit. A man trying to apologize to a woman. Photo credit: Canva When to apologize and when not to The big takeaway is that you should only have to apologize if you did something wrong and need to make amends. When people apologize all the time, their words start to lose their meaning. If you’re always sorry, then you’re never sorry. It also makes others feel like they can’t express themselves because you’ve already stolen their window of opportunity by saying sorry before anyone could share their feelings.  For the people-pleasers out there who overuse “sorry” just to keep others happy, research shows that people prefer to be thanked rather than to be apologized to. A 2019 study found that when it comes to a customer service issue, people are 15% more satisfied when their expectations aren’t met if they’re told “thank you for understanding” rather than “we apologize.”  The difference is that when we apologize, we accept responsibility while making the situation about us. But a “thank you” highlights the other person’s good character while still implying we were at fault. Simply put, they feel better about themselves, instead of worse about us. The post Saying ‘sorry’ constantly isn’t a bad trait, but there’s a more confident way to express yourself appeared first on Upworthy.

In 1986, a five-year-old boy named Saroo went out with his older brother Guddu near their hometown of Khandwa in central India. The brothers were poor, often riding trains to nearby towns to look for food and dropped coins. At a station in Burhanpur, Guddu told Saroo to wait on a bench while he went off to work. Saroo, exhausted, fell asleep. When he woke up, Guddu was gone. Saroo wandered onto a nearby empty train carriage, half expecting to find his brother inside. Instead, the doors closed, and the train started moving. He was trapped. He rode that train for what he believes was around two days, alone, terrified, with no idea where he was going. When it finally stopped, he was in Calcutta, now Kolkata, roughly 1,000 miles from home in a city of millions where he didn’t speak the language. He couldn’t tell anyone the name of his town. He was five and couldn’t read. What he didn’t know, and wouldn’t learn for 25 years, was that Guddu had been killed on the train tracks that same night. Saroo survived three weeks on the streets of Calcutta before ending up in an orphanage. There, an Australian couple, Sue and John Brierley, adopted him and brought him home to Hobart, Tasmania. “Saroo’s arrival was a kind of birth into our family,” Sue Brierley told PEOPLE in 2017. “It was just a fantastic moment, filled with love and joy.” He grew up loved, safe, and an ocean away from everything he’d lost. But the memories never left. He could still picture the layout of his neighborhood, a water tower, a pedestrian bridge, a ravine near his home. He could even half-remember the name of his suburb, though as a small child he’d only ever known it as something that sounded like “Ginestlay.” Then came Google Earth. Brierley began doing the math. He knew roughly how long he’d been on that train and how fast Indian trains traveled, which gave him a rough search radius around Kolkata. Then, he started scanning methodically, obsessively, following rail lines outward from the city, looking for the specific landmarks burned into his memory. He spent years at it. On March 31, 2011, it happened. He found a town that looked achingly familiar, and beside it a small suburb whose name finally clicked: Ganesh Talai. Not “Ginestlay.” A child’s mangled version of a real place. The water tower was there. The bridge was there. It was home. His adoptive family backed him completely. “If he wanted to explore that,” Sue said, “we wanted him to be fully happy about his identity.” In February 2012, Brierley flew to India and made his way to Ganesh Talai. He walked to the house he remembered, but his family was gone. A short distance away, he found three women standing outside. The one in the middle stepped forward. He knew immediately. So did she. It was his mother, Kamla Munshi, who had converted to Islam and taken the name Fatima after he disappeared. She had never given up hope that her lost son was alive. They embraced in the street and held on, surrounded by neighbors, in what Brierley would later call the most pivotal moment of his life. She took his hand, led him inside, and began calling his surviving siblings to tell them the impossible news. It was in that reunion that Saroo finally asked the question that had no good answer. Where was Guddu? His mother’s eyes filled with tears. His brother had been found dead on the train tracks about a month after Saroo vanished. In the span of a few weeks all those years ago, Fatima had lost two sons. Now, one of them was standing in her home, a grown man with an Australian accent. A year later, Sue Brierley traveled to India to meet Fatima. With a translator bridging the gap between the two women who had each, in their own way, been Saroo’s mother, the moment was almost too big to hold. “The earth seemed to be sort of moving,” Sue said. “I started to cry, and she hugged me. She said through the translator, ‘He’s your son now. I give my son to you.’ We stood there for quite a while, just the three of us holding each other. Suddenly there was no noise. There was only our breathing.” Brierley still keeps in close touch with Fatima, visits regularly, and bought her a house. Saroo told his whole story in his memoir A Long Way Home, which was adapted into the 2016 film Lion, with Dev Patel playing the adult Saroo and Nicole Kidman as Sue Brierley. The film earned six Academy Award nominations. But the version on the page and the screen both come back to the same nearly unbelievable core: a frightened five-year-old memorized the shape of his home, carried it across an ocean and a quarter of a century, and then, with a satellite’s eye and a staggering amount of patience, found his way back to his mother’s doorstep. The post A 5-year-old fell asleep on the wrong train. He found his way home 25 years later on Google Earth. appeared first on Upworthy.

Mental health help, as many know, isn’t always as readily available as it could be. There are often roadblocks, whether it’s lack of funds, issues with insurance, or merely a stigma about getting help in the first place. This can be deeply frustrating and, for some, even dissuade them from seeking assistance. In 2006, Dr. Dixon Chibanda, a Zimbabwean psychiatrist, came up with a plan to make it easier to get help. He set up what’s known as a “Friendship Bench,” where elderly volunteers lend a friendly ear on benches, filling in as makeshift “grandparents.” In 2024, nearly 20 years later, Washington, D.C., adopted the same idea. It’s still going strong. View this post on Instagram Friendship benches around the world Friendship Bench DC, which was modeled after the original, was brought to the U.S. by HelpAge USA. It is part of the larger HelpAge Global network, which describes itself as “working with more than 200 organizations in 99 primarily low- and middle-income countries to promote the rights and wellbeing of older people.” Its vision is clear. It is hoping to inspire “a world in which all people can lead dignified, healthy, and secure lives, regardless of how old they are or where they live.” It’s a win-win. Older people can feel like they’re being of service, while low- to middle-income patients (or really anyone) can find a place to feel seen and heard. Friendship benches are spread all over the city, near schools, churches, senior living homes, libraries, and other recreational spaces. Feeling less alone Their site assures that there’s no judgment: “Friendship Bench DC offers a confidential, safe, and judgment-free place to talk through whatever you may be facing with an older person you can trust. The Grandparents who serve on Friendship Bench DC know life can be tough and are here to help you feel less alone.” Just recently, The Washington Post shared personal stories about the project. Its Instagram post discussed how essential these kinds of programs are for the community: “Friendship Bench DC offers a safe space for mental health support, particularly for Black men, through older volunteers known as ‘grandparents.'” While a person must schedule an appointment, the mutually beneficial service is totally free. No payment or insurance is required whatsoever. It’s volunteer-based and growing quickly, the Instagram post explains. And the senior citizens who take part are taught to be excellent listeners: “The grandparents are trained to learn how to listen empathetically, summarize what they’ve heard, and equip visitors to learn how to solve their problems.” “A buoy that I can always see on the horizon” The Washington Post shared the story of Carlene Meheux, who used the program after seeing a flyer for it. Having lost her grandmother a few years back, she was drawn to the idea. “Friendship Bench is like a buoy that I can always see on the horizon,” she said. “There’s a date and a time where I know that I’m going to be heard.” “Society needs more of this” Many in the comments seemed deeply impressed by the concept. One Instagrammer points out how fast they’d use it if available: “The way I’d run to those grandmas right now. I’d give anything to have mine back.” Others relay the importance of this concept spreading all over the world: “Incredible and such joy just thinking about the opportunity. Should be everywhere.” And one commenter shared their thoughts on how positive this could be for all communities: “Our society needs more of this. Elders are our most important source of life experience and knowledge. Their ability to provide living history and insight for younger generations is a privilege that must be respected and honored.” The post Zimbabwe introduced the ‘Friendship Bench.’ 18 years later, the U.S. is doing it, and it could be a game changer for mental health. appeared first on Upworthy.