The Power of Hope Everything in life that grows into it’s final potential begins as a small package called a seed. As small and as uninteresting as a seed may look in the hand of a farmer,it’s the key to a future harvest. If you plant the seed of an apple tree it will not only give you apples when it matures, but in those apples are seeds for more trees that could eventually become an orchard. This principle of seed also works within you. There are thoughts that lay dormant within your mind that seem unreal and unachievable. But these positive thoughts are the seeds of a better future. Athletes now perfect their technique and performance using positive thoughts in a technique called visualization. Is this a new concept? Not really. This technique is as old as man’s earthly existence. Although it’s been called many different things through the years, it really bears the simple name ‘hope.’ What is hope? Hope is a positive picture of an immaterialized possible future outcome. It’s shown like a cinematic experience on our minds picture screen called the imagination. In the imagination we either pre-play our future or replay our past. If we often pre-play bad future outcomes in our mind then we will swing towards a pessimistic outlook on life which can contribute to depression, sickness and a failure complex. According to studies done by Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania and two of his colleagues it was found that pessimistic individuals get depressed more often. Depression causes a depletion of brain hormones, which starts a chain of biochemical events that slow down the immune system. This impairs the performance of the body’s T and NK cells which are responsible for recognizing and killing foreign harmful entities.But optimists seem to maintain a healthier immune system and are therefore generally less prone to depression and sickness. Not only that but optimists
seem to handle stressful situations better and accomplish more goals. Optimism lays within persons whose minds are full of hope. To understand how hope works we must go back to understanding the principle of seed. Everything we plan to do passes through the picture screen of our minds. This means before we ever physically do anything, we visualize it.

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