Hope

Greetings all,

I hope you have had a wonderful first week of June.  We've had quite the variance in weather from jacket wearing to tank tops.  As I pondered this week a topic didn't come to mind until this very afternoon.

We need a reason to continue on to move forward in life. The engine that drives our dreams and our goals is hope.  We hope that we can improve our situation or that of our descendants.  We hope that we can change, and that we can change the world.

Hope in this day and age is a vanishing art.  Cynicism and doubt rule our thinking culture.  Hope has come to be associated with the naive and ignorant.  I can't tell you how many times I share an advancement or accomplishment that I've seen only to have it torn apart by people.  The condescension is palpable any time someone offers a solution to any significant problem.  I find all this attitude troubling.  We've made being hopeful the antithesis of being intelligent.  I don't like where this is going.

When I lose hope in a better world I stagnate.  I muddle along and look for distractions instead of progressing on my life's path.  I imagine this is much the same for everyone else.  They just try to get by and learn not to hope for something better because they think it will bring inevitable disappointment and pain. This is often the case, but to not hope is to give up all chances for any kind of change.

This week it's a short post, but I really want you to think about hope.  We get told from a young age not to get our hopes up over and over again until we learn to not hope.  Some of us even hope for the worst just so we can have the satisfaction of being right.  What kind of world does that make?  What kind of life does it leave you?

So ask yourself have you given up on hope?  Do you tear down the optimists just so you can feel good about being right? What would happen if you left room for hope?  What if  you suspended your cynical  view for a little while and took a chance that things could work out for the best?  What would your life look like?  How would you treat yourself and your loved ones?

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle