Happiness and HOPE: –

Hope is defined by psychologists as the conviction that one can find the means to attain one’s goal and develop the motivation necessary to do so. It is known that hope improves student’s test results and athlete’s performance, makes ill- ness and agonizing debility more bearable, and makes pain itself (from burns, arthritis, spinal injuries, or blindness, for example) easier to tolerate. It has been demonstrated for instance, using a method to measure resistance to pain, that people who show a marked tendency to be hopeful are able to tolerate contact with a very cold surface twice as long as those who don’t.

The optimist does not give up quickly. Strengthened by the hope of success, one perseveres and succeeds more often than the pessimist, especially in adverse conditions. The pessimist has a tendency to back away from difficulties, sink into resignation or turn to temporary distractions that will not solve one’s prob- lems. The pessimist will demonstrate little resolve, for one doubts everything and everyone, foresees the failure of every undertaking (instead of potential for growth, development and fruitfulness), and sees every person as a schemer and an egoist. One sees a threat in every new thing and anticipates catastrophe. In a word; when hearing a door creak, the optimist thinks it’s opening and the pessimist thinks it’s closing.