What a bleak future it would be if we had nothing to look forward to! Imagine not having any goal to strive for, or having no direction in life. What a grey outlook that is, and it’s almost horrifying to contemplate. It’s important, very important, to always have something positive on the horizon to look forward to.

A good example would be a child who is in the middle of the school year, having a bit of trouble in school, and wondering when this misery is going to end. Perhaps there is a subject or course that is giving him or her trouble, and no matter how hard he works, or how much studying is applied to the subject, it’s very tough to grasp. As a result, the grades this child receives reflect the lack of comprehension that exists. This child is in a personal purgatory, and the only thing that seems to get him through the day is looking forward to the end of the school year. So it might be possible for the child to do better in the subject if he or she keeps that goal in mind. In other words, nothing is really forever. This subject is going to end, there will be another course to take, and it’s just not as bad as the world crashing down all over the place, even if it feels like that to the child. A good teacher will remind this child the above, and hope that the child doesn’t take it too seriously, and the odds are he will get by. He or she may not love the course, but at least there is something to look forward to…the end of it!

When things in life are falling apart, and most of us have had that experience at one time or another, it’s important to look at the big picture. It’s important to keep something positive in the foreground, whatever that “something” is. Perhaps the person is going to get married, or is going to take a trip to a destination that they’ve always wanted to travel to. When in the midst of the funk, keep that goal in perspective. Remind oneself to keep on keeping on, by realizing that the goal is coming closer and closer to be achieved. That positive outlook can only help get one through the day, and through whatever seems to bothering the person at that moment.

Looking forward to something that one loves to do can certainly brush away a lot of life’s irritations. Try to focus on keeping that goal in the forefront, try to imagine being at that place in time in the future, and the positive and happy feelings just might get one through whatever is troubling him or her at the moment.