The happy ending is our national belief.

-Mary McCarthy

This is a very interesting question. Why? By setting some goals for what you want from life, you can begin to take actions that will improve your circumstances, even if circumstances are very challenging. For instance, you might:

-Keep track of how to avoid new diseases and change your behavior to minimize your risk. During the Black Death, for instance, if you avoided certain environments, you were at little risk.

-Choose not to remarry after a divorce, or act with great caution in your relationships before and after remarrying.

-Follow the advice of your physician about how to overcome depression, see a psychiatrist to help remove behaviors that help depress you, and seek out the company of people who make you feel better.

-Found a group to support lobbying for legislation and treaties to make those who financially support suicide bombers into criminals, and require that all products and services from countries that harbor such supporters be boycotted.

-Move to a place where continual ocean-laden breezes blow away air pollution.

-Provide for your own retirement and health-care needs through savings and investments.

-Found a business that will benefit by being able to outsource activities to Africa.

-Live in a location that's easy walking distance to everything you need, plus has access to great public transportation.

-Pay off all of your debts so that interest rates rises don't affect your costs.

-Rent rather than own your home in perilous economic times so that the value of what you own doesn't shrink.

Forewarned is forearmed. With enough lead time, most of us can construct useful paths to offset the potential harm that changed circumstances would otherwise bring. So take a few moments now to consider how you would like to be living in 2035 in terms of:

-Your physical health

-Your relationship with your spouse

-Your family life

-Your friends

-Your mental health and acuity

-Your personal safety

-Your quality of life

-Your home

-Your location

-Your financial resources

-Your income

-Your financial obligations

Chances are that you've just painted what seem to you like a pretty rosy picture. Am I right? Well, I have a surprise for you. By focusing on avoiding problems and shifting your focus to what you would like to have, you will, however, have missed your best opportunities. Why? Because you never focused on the best that is available to you.

Let me cure you of this short-sightedness now. You need to rethink your answers about how you would like to be living in 2035. Take a few minutes to consider the best circumstances you can imagine for yourself for living in 2035 in terms of the previously listed parameters.

If you are like most people, what you just thought about each of these circumstances is substantially better than what you previously thought you would like to see in 2035.

Why are you so much more optimistic? Because now you went beyond just what you'd like to the best of what you can imagine.