I have recently found myself getting into a habit I'm not very proud of: expecting the worst to avoid defeat. I don't like to lose. I don't like to face setbacks. I don't like to have my heart broken. So in an attempt to avoid these things, I often plan out in my mind the worst thing that could happen in a given situation. Don't get me mistaken, I don't want the worst to happen. I just fear breaking my own heart. I figure if I'm prepared for the worst nothing can go wrong, right?

Nope.

This is life. No matter how much you plan and plan attempting to find some control over it, you really have a limited amount of control. Sure you can plan out the worst for an event you are prepared for. But when life throws a curve ball at you and you didn't plan it out, how do you respond? 2016 was a year of curve balls, changing the path I didn't always see coming. While my habit of expecting the worst has saved me a few heartbreaks, it never prepared me for the curve balls in my life.

I'm slowly realizing that this is no way to life. If you don't expect the best for yourself, who will? Maybe, though, the world has it wrong when it tells us to "expect" the best. Maybe the key here isn't to "expect," it's to hope. Hope is defined as as "feeling of trust." To me, that sounds better than expect, "regard as likely to happen." My 2017, and yours too if you can relate, will be the year of hope.

I am going to make the effort to no longer imagine up the worst thing that could happen. Instead I will imagine the best, and use my imagination to drive me towards my goals. I will put my hope in life and its funny way of working things out even when it seems like things are going in the wrong directions. I will put my hope in the magic that life so often shows us. I will put my hope in the path of my life.