‘Without hope, we have nothing’

Published: Sat 25 Nov 2023, 9:15 AM

Are you a hopeful sort of person? I hope you are, because individual hope makes up collective hope; and this crazy world of ours needs hope now like seldom before.

I would say that one of the greatest attributes I have been blessed with is that my hope tank never emptied. No matter how bad things were during my lifetime, I don’t ever remember giving up hope that things would sort themselves out or that life could and would get better. We have to retain hope in our lives, because, without hope what else have we got. The opposite of hope is despair.

Hope, optimism and conviction are first cousins. Hope breeds optimism and optimism shows the pathway to conviction and a better outcome than where we are now. In other words, hope delivers the motivation and courage to succeed. Martin Luther King Jnr, said about hope; ‘If you have hope, somehow you have the vitality to keep moving, you have the courage to be, the quality that keeps you going on, in spite of it all… and so, today I have a dream.’

Hope is a fundamental ingredient to a good life. It means that not only do we believe things can change, but that things are always likely to change for the better. If you are not blessed with the seed of hope, you won’t believe that things are ever going to improve. This can strip you of the power to change your future.

But with that hope – which may well be related to faith as well, your mind is in a better state to picture a better future and motivate you to pursue it. Hope helps us believe that it’s worth taking whatever action is needed to produce a positive result.

Aspirations are nothing more than compacted feelings of hope that we set to achieve the targets that are set for us, or the hundreds of different ways we gauge ourselves every single day. Barrack Obama practically built his political career on his own feelings of hope and in preaching a message of hope to his people.

You use the word ‘hope’ probably dozens of times a day without even thinking of it. ‘I hope you are feeling better’; ‘I hope the rain stays off’; ‘I hope the lads play well on Sunday’ – and that very sagacious saying; ‘where there’s life there’s hope’. Hope is infectious when people talk like that.

There are numerous examples of people expressing words of hope that not only helped themselves, but inspired those around them. Christopher Reeve, better known as ‘Superman’, suffered a devastating spinal injury when he fell from a horse in 1995. The accident left him paralysed from the neck down and unable to breathe without a ventilator. In spite of that traumatic life-changing tragedy, Christopher decided that he was not going to be a burden on his family and he would lead a productive life. He knew the power of hope and told the doctors who treated him; ‘Once you choose hope, anything is possible.’

Reeves set up a foundation with the goal of finding a cure and advancing the quality of life for people living with spinal cord injuries. He also went on to direct a TV movie and starred in a remake of a Hitchcock movie, playing a quadriplegic. Christopher Reeves attributed the life he made for himself post-accident as being always able to hope for the next good thing to happen.

I told you the story some time ago of the nettle I found that grew a six-foot bare stem up through bales of silage so that it might produce three or four leaves in the sunlight. This is nothing strange in nature, but it just struck me that day and how much we humans can learn about hope from nature.

It may sound corny coming from this column, but have you ever found the first snow-drop of the year, or watched the sun rise and felt a rise of hope? No matter what turbulence is going on around us, birds sing, lambs play in the fields – and as my neighbour Kevin says, hopefully, when grass growth is poor; ‘don’t worry about it, because the same amount of grass will grow every year!’. That is an expression of hope at its best!

Hope and despair will always be linked together. G.B.S. said that, ‘he who has never hoped can never despair’. Like we say, hope is infectious and you can give hope to others through reassuring words and the odd act of random kindness. Re-instilling faith in the goodness of one another spreads hope and helps all of us to see things in a new way.