To be happy we must believe the future will  get better
If you want to be happy today, tomorrow and for the days to come, then you have to believe tomorrow will get better. When you believe tomorrow will be better than today you create hope inside yourself. As you use the power of motivation to set goals for yourself, and you believe you will achieve them, you create an inner sensation of anticipation and excitement. This will add to the passion in your life. For example, maybe you aren’t married yet and you wonder how much happier you’ll be when you get married. On the other hand maybe you are already married and feel dissatisfied. You long for the day when you will find fulfillment in your marriage. Either way, unless you believe your relationships will get better, you will lose hope for well-being in your life. You must believe that your relationships, finances, career, health and spiritual well-being will significantly improve as the days past by. In the absence of such hope you may join the throngs of people who exhibit the worst kinds of behaviour. Many people will resort to behaviours which will be destructive to themselves or others. For example research shows that people who don’t believe their future will get better are more apt to use drugs and alcohol. Conversely hope is so fundamental to human happiness that even in dire circumstances some people can remain happy if they see some “light at the end of the tunnel”.
I strongly urge you to devote as much attention as you can to the subject of happiness. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is. The clearest and most fruitful intention we can have as human beings is to achieve happiness and spiritual well-being. It is what motivated me originally to write this book. If we are not crystal clear on the need for happiness in our lives we will spin our wheels without going anywhere. But the achievement of happiness cannot come without struggling throughout our lives. Mandela’s words, “The struggle is my life,” are not to be taken lightly.
Nelson Mandela personifies struggle. He led and won the fight against apartheid with extraordinary vigour and resilience after spending nearly three decades of his life behind bars. He has sacrificed his private life and his youth for his people, and remains South Africa’s best known and beloved hero. In 1962 Mandela left South Africa for military training in Algeria. On his return he was arrested for leaving the country illegally and for incitement to strike. He conducted his own defense. He was convicted and jailed for five years in November 1962. While serving his sentence, he was charged, in the Rivonia trial, with sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment. A decade before being imprisoned, Mandela had spoken out against the introduction of Bantu Education, recommending instead that community activists should “make every home, every shack or rickety structure a centre of learning”.
Robben Island, where he was imprisoned, became in itself a centre for learning, and Mandela was a central figure in the organised political education classes. In prison Mandela never compromised his political principles and was always a source of strength for other prisoners. During the seventies he refused the offer of a remission of sentence if he recognized Transkei and settled there. In the eighties he again rejected President PW Botha’s offer of freedom if he renounced violence. Shortly after his release on Sunday February 11th, 1990, Mandela and his delegation agreed to the suspension
of armed struggle. He went on to win the presidency of his country and to lead South Africa into a new era without apartheid. He was inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa on 10 May 1994 - June 1999. Mandela has honorary degrees from more than 50 international universities and is chancell or of the University of the North. Nelson Mandela retired from Public life in June 1999. He currently resides in his birth place - Qunu, Transkei.
Mandela’ life is an incredible example of hope. In spite of constant and continual trials, he was able to sustain the hope for his country and himself. In order to achieve a sense of our well-being, we must believe that everything happens for some purpose and that it serves us. The reason for choosing to believe that everything happens for a reason is because we don’t want to be victims of circumstances. The minute we believe we are victims who are out of control, we become fearful. The truth is fear and happiness simply don’t mix. That’s why people say : “Don’t worry be happy.”
I discovered something quite extraordinary when pursuing the secret to happiness. I discovered that on a deep level we all know exactly what we are doing. What does that mean? It means that people who want to be happy make choices that enable them to experience happiness. And the people who do not want to be happy deliberately make choices that ensure the continuation of their unhappiness.
“ It is better to Believe than to Disbelieve, In so doing you bring everything to the realm of possibility.”
— Albert Einstein —

Another key to happiness is the power of belief. Belief is so fundamental to happiness because without basic belief, no progress is possible. If you want to make significant progress in being happy you must seek to achieve a feeling of certainty. This certainty is the difference between happiness and sadness. How do you move from the emotion of fear to experiencing genuine joy in your life? To do this you must resolve your internal conflicts over the emotions which cause you to feel unresourceful.
The human emotional spectrum can be broken down into two basic elements: love and fear. Hurt, anger, frustration, disappointment, guilt, inadequacy and depression: these are all fear-based emotions. These emotions in turn produce feelings of depletion, weakness, inability to cope and exhaustion. The highest state of being is love. It produces buoyancy, radiance, lightness and joy. If you pursue truth, then you will come to understand that love heals everything.
What I’m saying is this: Anytime we feel we will experience pain, we become fearful. This means pain is the ultimate reason for all our fears. And because at the very core of our being we no longer want to experience fear, we look for certainty. Why? Because we all want to feel certain the future will bring us pleasure. Love being one of the highest forms of pleasure. When we make the wrong choices over and over and over again, a karmic momentum is created.  It’s the accumulated momentum of having made unwholesome choices consistently over a long period of time that causes fear. When we have chosen wrongly hundreds of times, it eventually becomes a powerful momentum, a momentum that literally becomes selfgenerating. This type of momentum eventually caught-up with me after many years of struggling with a very painful event in my life. When I was a young child my mother was murdered by my father. At the time I was only seven years old. At such a young age, I hardly understood the significance of this event, but later on in my teens I started feeling the impact of this incredibly horrific event. I suffered from low self-esteem, rebellious attitudes, stuttering when I spoke, and serious depression. The momentum in my life was all negative. What stopped this downward spiral wa  the power of motivation.
Maybe you too are experiencing a downward spiral. It is because I have been there myself that I want to help you create positive momentum in your life. Today, I realize that all of the negative emotions that I felt as a child had deep meaning for the purpose of my being. The desire to know why my father could act so selfishly and with such cruelty (How could someone murder?), moved me to understand human motivation. When I was a child I didn’t appreciate the events that had taken place. I adored my mother very much and felt so much pain over losing her. Today, however because of my past, I understand motivation quite well. Today I have the privilege of helping people all around the world overcome pain and suffering. Unlike animals we can always choose our response to any stimulus. The God given supercomputer called the human brain is capable of reprogramming itselfin a powerful fashion. Even the most unspeakable events in our lives can be instructive and can be used for good. I have seen this happen in many lives. I have experienced it in my own life.

Source : POWER OF MOTIVATION by Michael Bolduc