There is a continual desire working in every soul to see things perfect according to one's own conception of perfection; and as one goes on with this desire, observing, analyzing and examining things and beings, one becomes disappointed and disheartened, and besides one becomes impressed with the lack one sees in conditions, in persons, in beings. No doubt there is one thing that keeps one alive, and that is hope: if it is not right today, tomorrow it will become right; if it is not perfect just now, after some time it will be perfect. And so on this hope one lives, and if one has given up this hope then life ends. If one is disappointed in one person, one thinks that in another person one can find all that one expects; if under one condition one is disappointed, one hopes for another condition which will bring about the fruitfulness of one's expectations. The teachers and the prophets have pointed upward. That symbolically teaches us that it is in looking forward to something more hopeful that one lives, and that is the secret of happiness and peace. But once a person develops one idea that there is nothing to look forward to in life, he has finished living.