Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals choose the way they think.

Optimism is a tool with a certain clear set of benefits: it fights depression, it promotes achievement and produces better health.

There are physical characteristics which are inherited. These include things like good looks, high intelligence, physical coordination. These attributes contribute to success in life, and success in life is a determinant of optimism.

Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.

On the relationship side, if you teach people to respond actively and constructively when someone they care about has a victory, it increases love and friendship and decreases the probability of depression.

Once a depressed person becomes active and hopeful, self-esteem always improves. Bolstering self-esteem without changing hopelessness, without changing passivity, accomplishes nothing.

It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may become so habitual we don't even realize we have them unless we stop to focus on them. And they don't just sit there idly; they have CONSEQUENCES.