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Do you see to glass as half-full rather than half-empty? Do you keep your eye up- on the doughnut, not upon the hole? Suddenly these clichés are scientific questions, as researchers scrutinize the power of positive thinking. Research is proving that optimism can help you to be happier, healthier and more successful. By contrast, pessimism leads to hopelessness, sickness and failure, and is linked to depression, loneliness and painful shyness. If we could teach people to think more positively, it would be like inoculating them against these mental ills.

Your habits count but the belief that you can succeed affects whether or not you will. In part, that’s because optimists and pessimists deal with the same challenges and disappointments in very different ways. When things go wrong, the pessimist tends to blame himself. He would say, “I’m not good at this.” “I always fail.” But the optimist looks for loopholes. Negative or positive, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people feel hopeless, they don’t bother to acquire the skills they need to succeed.

—Anonymous, “Be an Optimist”

If you see the glass as half-full, you must be a positive person, always appreciating your life. If you see the glass as half-empty, you must be a passive person, as what you see around you is always unpleasant.

How do you interpret the sentence, “Negative or positive, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy”?