Hope gives people the ability to overcome what previously was identified as hopeless. In a 2011 publication of Psychology Today, the writer says that hope structures our life in anticipation of the future and influences how we feel in the present. It creates a positive mood, influences our state of mind and alters our behaviour in the present. Hope does not fit the criteria of an emotion, since an emotion is automatic and reflexive and leads to particular thoughts and actions. It is however recognized as an emotional state that is a resource against despair. Having hope is to imagine a positive outcome.