Beethoven can be seen as one of the superstars of thriving. He did not suddenly transform himself from Beethoven - someone living in helpless despair - to a person living in constant joy and elation. Like all ordinary thrivers, he continued to suffer through many terrible times and remained prone to dark moods throughout most of his life. "I will seize Fate by the throat. It will not wholly conquer me. Oh, how beautiful it is to live.."

Paul Pearsall: The Beethoven Factor is "SIG, Stress Induced Growth.” Like the composer, there are persons for whom adversity is a stimulus for personal growth and creativity. Also like Beethoven, they aren't "super humans." Like all of us, they are flawed beings, but something within and about them allows them to construe their lives with an upward psychological trajectory even when things seem at their worst. They are not just naive blind optimists. They are "benefit finders" who can discover growth where many others see only disaster.

Conventional wisdom insists that stress is a thief robbing us of our ability to relax and enjoy life to its fullest. But for centuries, poets and philosophers have celebrated the ups and downs of life as the very essence of living, the spice that enables us to taste life fully... The new, fast-emerging positive psychology movement is affirming the timeless wisdom of the philosophers by showing that it is not stress itself preventing us from enjoying life, but our negative reaction to stress that does the damage. Positive psychology confirms that rather than shrinking from adversity, we must become engaged by it--and thrive through it--before we can savor all the sweetness life has to offer.