What Do You Hope For?

"HOPE can be defined as the desire for something combined with an anticipation of it happening. In short, hope is the anticipation of something" Psychology Today

It is far too easy to give up hoping for better things. People today are pummelled with bad news and negativity until hope seems like it isn't worth the effort.

But, really, what do you hope for? Hope implies some anticipation, however limited, of it manifesting in our lives, All too often our fear of being disappointed keeps us from even hoping.

We may dream, without any anticipation. Therefore we have no hope. However, without hope we are unlikely to do anything that might move us toward manifesting our dreams. 

Hope is SO important for us to move forward. Giving up hope is surrender. Now is not the time to surrender. We must look at what we hope for with the eyse of one who can see the first step we must take. Open your eyes and ask what one thing you might do to make something begin to happen that you hope for. 

Maybe it is simply the step of acknowleging that you want it. Maybe it is taking time to make a plan, step-by-step. Maybe it is asking someone to help.

What ever that first step is, you are worth the effort to hope.

Those Moments

There are moments when everything feels overwhelmingly heavy, when there is too much negative energy, too much anger, too much death, too much responsibility, too much to do to make some little space good and right and pleasant. Peaceful. Calm.

I have those moments often when I've spent too much time watching the news and reading FaceBook. It happens when I'm weary and feeling weak. It happens when there is more to be done than I can imagine doing.

And I wonder sometimes how younger people cope these days. I'm in my seventies, retired. I don't have to juggle a job with the other parts of my life. And if it feels like too much to me, how much harder must it be for younger folks with jobs and kids and responsibilities I've outgrown.

I've read that depression in the western world is epidemic. I can easily see how it could be. War, terrorism, school shootings, murder, violence of every kind is in the news constantly. The middle class has less and less financial security. Racial tensions are extremely high. And just about every     "-ism" is alive and well.

And yet, we go on with our lives doing the best we can. And in the darkness of all this we still find hope. Flowers still bloom, the stars still shine, and babies make us smile.

Yes, there are babies being born that will change the world. And we have every hope that they will do better than all of us have done to make the world better.

Nothing is more emotionally healing than holding and infant and watch them smile when you talk to them, when you gently touch their cheek and simply say "Hello, there."

We can find hope in the face of an infant and in the return of the spring blossoms. We can look for positives and make them part of our life-view. We can create hope for ourselves and for other if we live it.

I read today that the hole in the ozone is getting smaller as we live ecologically. I took this to remind me that we can make a positive difference by how we live.

And, you know what? We find what we look for! I remind myself when I feel overwhelmed and seemingly without hope that it is time for me to start looking for positives and to creating positives.

Doing for others give them hope. This in turn somehow gives me hope. It says that I can make a difference, a positive difference.

And so can you.

Make Hope Happen in the World

We can make hope happen . First we program our minds with thoughts that the future will be better than the present because we have the power to make it so.

The future may be in the next hour, day or year. It all depends on what you want to happen. You need a clear vision or goal of what exactly "better" means. And then you need to see yourself as lead actor in you life.

Remember, every thing we do is a choice and every choice has consequences. When you decide to change your life you make choices that will move you in the direction of your vision or goal. So you DO have the power to make it so.

True. there will be obstacles, maybe setbacks, but with your eye on your goal you will keep moving toward it.

Keep thinking and feeling hopeful. Try "nexting", that is thinking and talking about the next thing, the next step, the next event, the next activity with anticipation and hopefulness. When we allow ourselves to focus on "no" and negative outcomes we lose hope. And hope gives us the energy and momentum we need to succeed.

Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D., Gallup Senior Scientist, and author of Making Hope Happen, has collaborated with other psychologists and educators around the world to research the science of hope. They found that how we think about the future  is a key determinant of success in school, work, and life determines how successful folks are. They found that hope leads to a twelve percent gain in academic performance, fourteen percent bump in workplace outcomes, and a ten percent happiness boost for hopeful people. The learned that hopeful people get  better grades in school. Hopeful salespeople sell as much product in six days as their low-hope colleagues do in seven days. And high -hope people are just plain happier than their low-hope friends.*

So hope is important for all of us. Let's make it happen in our own lives and share it with others. Imagine the world full of hopeful people and how much better it could be.


*Lopez, Shane J., Ph.D., Making Hope Happen, Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others.

Where There Is Light There Is Hope

How hopeful are you about your future? about our country? about the world? Think about it.

We see so many tragic things in the media that it is easy to think there is nothing to look forward to. Our sense of helplessness to change the direction of our life or our country or the world can point us in the darkest of directions. We don't know that there is anything we can do. And depression is the by-product of this thinking.

But we have hope,although we deny it. The reality is that we can create our own hope. And hope matters. Hope is a choice.Hope can be learned and hope can be shared. (Making Hope Happen, Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others  by Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D., Gallup Senior Scientist)

Hope matters. Without hope we would do nothing to make things better.

Hope is a choice. We can choose to look for ways to change things or we can sit and stew in what we deem is a hopeless situation.

Hope can be learned. We may have developed a hopeless attitude. But we can unlearn that and find the hope in everything.

Hope can be shared with others. When we express hopefulness and act on our hope we share hopefulness with others. We can create ripples of hope that spread far beyond us.

Create hope.

Are You the Real You?

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you really need to do, in order to have what your want. - Margaret Young

"Be who you really are" sounds simple enough. But most of us aren't. For many of us we don't even know who we really are. And often we are afraid that who we are isn't enough so we behave as if we are someone else. 

Authenticity is not something we have or don't have. It is something we must make a conscious choice to practice, a choice of how we want to live. And it is something that we usually practice some days more than others. It is something we work toward.

It involves letting go of who we think we are supposed to be and loving who we are, every day. It is developing the courage to be imperfect, to set and maintain boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. It is knowing that all are made of strength and struggle and exercising the compassion that comes with that knowledge. It is developing the connection and sense of belonging that happens only when we believe that we are, indeed, enough just as we are. Authenticity is not for sissies. 

e.e.cummings wrote "To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day to make you everybody but yourself -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human can fight -- and never stop fighting." 

The consequences of living as someone other than the real you are anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief. We can look around us and see the lives of people devastated by these consequences.

When you let go of being everything for everyone else, you will have more time, attention, love, and connection for the people in your life who are important to you.

In order to let go of trying to be perfect you need to nurture compassion for yourself! Yes, you have to love yourself enough to embrace your imperfect self and support your courage to be the real you. You have to allow yourself to really know who you are, what you want to do with your life, how you can best be the best you - not the perfect you.

Stop calling yourself names - "ugly", "stupid",  "bad", etc. Remind yourself that you are a worthwhile person and deserving of love and respect. Be warm and understanding toward yourself. Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to believe that showing up is enough when things are tough. Remind yourself that you are a strong person who has overcome many obstacles to get to where you are today. And know that that strength will carry you through whatever comes next.

Know that you are resourceful and are developing good problem-solving skills, that you can seek help, that you can do something that will help you manage your feelings and to cope, that you have social support available to you, that you are connected with others - family, friends, community. Know that you are connected to others by a power greater than us all, and that your connection to that power and to others is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality, in whatever way fits who you really are, brings you a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to your life.

You can have hope because you know where you want to go, how to get there; you're persistent, and can tolerate disappointment and try again; you believe in yourself. You know you can do whatever you need to do, even if it is difficult, time consuming, an not enjoyable. This is your personal power.

(Note: much of this post is based on the book The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene' Brown, Ph.D., L.M.S.W.)

So when is it the hardest for you to be authentically you?  Who are you most likely to try to impress with trying to be perfect? When are you the least kind with yourself? When do you feel the most powerless?

Changing the World Is Like AA

Changing the world is a lot like AA. First you have to acknowledge that you have a problem. Then you admit that you can't control the problem. And then you turn it over to a power greater than yourself.

So, do you have a problem with the world? Or are you comfortable with things as they are? Really. You have to decide just how uncomfortable the problem is for you. If you are willing to live with the status quo there is no reason for you to even consider changing it. Do you live in denial, telling yourself that it isn't a problem for you that other people are dying of starvation, preventable disease, or war.

Be honest with yourself. How much does it bother you? Does it bother you just enough that you distract yourself with other thoughts or rationalize that it isn't really YOUR problem?

The second part is easy to believe. No one can actually CONTROL the problem. It is already way out of control. But does that mean you should do nothing about it? Ask any AA member why they are in AA if they believe they can't control their addiction. Letting go of control of the problem doesn't mean you can't change YOURSELF - your beliefs, your behaviors, your choices.

And then turning it over to a power greater than yourself may sound too spiritual to you to take at face value. So let's look at that more closely. Obviously you, as an individual, cannot on your own change the world. So what might be a power greater than yourself? There is the power of joining with others, the power of hope, and the power of the universe.

There is synchronicity or serendipity that happens without you even knowing it. When one thing changes somewhere in the world the same thing almost magically occurs in other parts of the world. For instance, often someone will discover a new idea or invent a new machine or develop a new drug. And without anyone else knowing about it, the same thing is discovered or invented in someplace far away. It seems that the universe just waits for something new and then replicates it without people knowing it. This often occurs in science. I'm sure you've heard or read about such things.

 "Turning it over", therefore, doesn't mean you are now free to go back to acting the same way you've been acting, expecting magic to happen. It means letting go of your isolation, your unwillingness to ask for help, your resistance to change happening in your life.

So where does that leave you? Are you willing to do anything about the state of our world? If you are, it means starting inside yourself, your beliefs. Do you believe there can be a better world?

Hope must be part of your perspective. "Hope shows us a destination, but a vast territory, the territory of despair, lies between it and us" (1) This spark of hope, however, can be fanned into flame at the slightest turn of good news. So with this perspective, look for the good news, the ways things are changing for the better in yourself and in the world, no matter how small. And encourage hope your perspective and in others. It is vital to change.

We must believe in our hearts that the beautiful world we long for is possible. And we must make our choices every day from our heart, not because someone says we should or shouldn't act with compassion. We must actually make room in our hearts for compassion and nurture it. When it is growing there your choices will be more compassionate. You won't have to make yourself do compassionate acts, you will BE compassionate and your behavior will show that.

We are going to have to change a lot of our beliefs - beliefs about scarcity, about how we are related to all of creation, about what we really need, about happiness and what it really means, about money, about power, about so many things. We have to consider that nothing is as it seems and to look beyond what we first perceive.

It all comes down to us as individuals, to our inner being. I hope more and more people will take the journey to find themselves and to grow into truly compassionate people. Then things in our world will change and change rapidly. Won't you consider it?

(1) The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible , Charles Eisenstein.

Today's daily dozen to-do list choices:

• Refrain from judging others or harassing them because they may be different or because of their actions. Search yourself or things you have in common rather than ways you are different.
• Organize a flower-planting party in a nearby park, school, or faith organization. Consider the response others have to the beauty of nature and what a difference that can make for their day when they enjoy your handiwork.
• Write a kind note to relatives and friends, letting them know why they are special.
• Open the door for another person when out in public, no matter who that person is. Smile a greeting.
• Consider needs others may have that you don't see being met and do something to change that. E.g. Approach bookstores owners and publishers about ordering and carrying more books in large print or on tape.
• Talk to others about kindness, why it makes a difference and the fact that it really is easy to do.
• Recycle all newspapers, plastics, aluminum, and paper, even if you have to go out of your way to do it. Be kind to the earth.
• Create a "smile file" with cartoons and pictures that make othrs smile; pick out a cartoon to cheer up a friend in need.
• Take a day and pay a compliment once every hour; practice telling people what you like about them.
• Call an animal shelter and find out what donations they need. Collect treats, food, first aid supplies, toys, cat litter, towels, and soft blankets for the homeless animals. Most shelters will encourage you to come "visit" the animals to give them special individual attention. Go regularly and get your "animal love fix!"
• Switch to pet-safe antifreeze. Antifreeze contains propylene glycol that carries a tempting but fatal taste to animals. Just one teaspoon can kill a cat and two ounces can kill a dog.
• Reduce air pollution by planting trees and plants in your yard.