The past few weeks have found me pondering the matter of "hope" as I prepared a talk on the subject. It gave me an alternative to my usual view of things through the eyeglasses of "joy", but interestingly enough… in that study, I found the topic of this month's column, which is counting "on" joy. While watching the NCAA tournament last month, I was struck by the great joy experienced by the winning, lower seeded teams as they knocked off some of the higher ranked ones in the early rounds. Now, no one goes into an athletic contest not “hoping” to win… but in cases when the "unexpected" happens, and a favored team is toppled, the jubilation seems much greater! Everyone enjoys a Cinderella story. Observing such joy took me back to the days of watching my boys participate in parks and recreational sports. Each of the three was involved in the summer ball programs as well as the other occasional leagues. Invariably, our oldest son always ended up ...