I came across a story about Charles Darrow this weekend, a story that highlights the importance of maintaining a positive attitude as we go through life's difficult times.

Back in 1932, in the depths of the Dirty Thirties, Charles Darrow was broke, had no real job, and his wife was pregnant with their first child.

The future looked bleak, but that's not where the Darrows chose to focus their attention, in fact they decided to spend their evenings, literally, laughing at the hand fate had dealt them. They created a game that allowed them to imagine themselves as millionaires.

Recalling vacations they had spent at nearby Atlantic City, Charles carved hotels and houses out of scrap wood and then with wild abandon, they bought and sold properties worth "millions".

They called the game ... Monopoly ... and a few years later they were laughing their way to the bank.

Dozens of the people I have written about in this column have faced similar tough times and, thanks to that same Darrow-like positive attitude, found their way though the darkness. In fact I'm having lunch with three of those people on Thursday, Bill and Pam Pineo and Lorna Prentz.

Now 94, Lorna has had major vision problems for years, and she needs a walker to get around. Given those challenges, when Peter, her husband of 64 years, died a few years ago, she could have been forgiven for giving up on life but that wasn't the route this feisty lady chose.

"I decided that if I was going to live, I was going to enjoy life," she told me. "Otherwise I might just as well pop off!"

With that kind of attitude it will be a long time before Lorna Prentz "pops off".

Through their sixty-two years of marriage, Bill and Pam Pineo have seen their share of tough times, maybe more than their share, but their positive attitude has always got them through; the same positive attitude that sees them, in both good and bad times, maintaining a constant focus on helping others as well as themselves.

Now in her early nineties, Laura Johnstone, a retired teacher, still tutors students one-on-one. Her positive attitude as a classroom teacher in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and early 70s has led to hundreds of former students keeping in touch. One of them from the 1940s has sent her a dozen roses every Christmas for the past sixty plus years.

But you don't have to be in your eighties or nineties to have discovered the importance of learning to develop a positive attitude.

My friend Ruth Vallis became blind when she was just three years old. Four years later she decided she wanted a two-wheel bike and eventually, after much persistence and persuasion, convinced her parents to at least buy her a tricycle, a tricycle whose right rear wheel never touched the ground -- You see Ruth wanted a two-wheel bike ... and she got one.

Ruth's story exemplifies the importance of persistence and an absolute commitment to achieving at least one small goal as well as the power of a positive attitude.

If you are going through a difficult time right now and you don't want to "pop off" just yet, I suspect the secret to success is to commit as Lorna did to enjoying the small things you already have in life; to focus on helping others as the Pineos do; and/or to pull a Ruth Vallis, gather all the guts and determination you can, and focus on achieving one small thing you have always wanted. You might also chose, a la Charles Darrow, to find something -- anything -- to help you laugh.

Put this wisdom into action and years from now, you can count on reaping the rewards of a life well lived. Laura Johnstone has been doing that for decades.