In the past week, I discovered that I enjoy looking forward to Thanksgiving more than the holiday itself.

Before, I was thinking about how much pie I was going to eat.

After, I was regretting eating so much yummy pie.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving during that week was what got me out of bed with a smile. It’s what kept me on track and productive. Looking forward to something shaped my entire week.

Anticipating a fun event can keep anyone happy.

It could be a big thing, like a vacation, or a small thing, like what’s for lunch.

Having joyful foresight keeps you positive and moving forward. Hoping for things is a fundamental part of what it means to be human.

Hope can keep anything going — including you. It’s an attitude that you can have all the time, and it works all of the time. You just have to find things that you can look forward to.

I have a planner that I use for mainly this purpose. It started out as a tool for school, but has evolved to become a collection of exciting bubble-lettered events.

Planning for exciting things is a way to keep hope in motion.

It could just be a one person movie night that may or may not happen, but having plans (even extremely ordinary and inflexible ones) can keep your life in order.

Upholding a positive attitude that is focused on the future is important when facing hard times, especially when considering drastic measures like suicide. Suicide is a problem that is becoming more and more common.

It’s a perilous situation where a person believes that there is nothing to live for.

Human lives are precious, and it distresses me that someone could consider terminating it over a well-sold lie: that you have nothing left to live for. There is always something to live for. There is always something that you can find to look forward to.

Sometimes I get asked how I stay happy. The answer is that I made a decision to never stop hoping for things.

That is why hope is so important. It keeps humans going, which is the greatest miracle in all of our lives.

“Hope is realistic anticipation which takes the form of a determination — not only to survive adversity but, moreover, to endure well to the end” — Neal A. Maxwell.

This column is the opinion of Chloe Kincaid, a student at Soldotna High School.