Hope is the heart of the human experience. It is essential. Hope keeps us going, inspires us, and gets us out of bed every morning. Without hope, mankind would be drowning in every terrible event, tragedy, war, diagnosis, heartbreak, and loss. Some days I just want to shut off the TV, put down my phone, and hide from all media outlets. It’s not only the natural disasters and illnesses that affect the innocent, but the unthinkable things human beings do to each other. It’s hard to digest the terrible things we hear about, or worse yet, are part of. We feel helpless and overwhelmed. But, we must do more than just have empathy for the affected and hope it doesn’t happen again. We have an obligation to our children and future generations to actively search for solutions, find compromise, and educate our society so history stops repeating itself. We must tirelessly look for a cure, a way to take care of those who cannot take of themselves, and find the good in the world again and again. Hope is the key to getting us there.
On a smaller scale, hope gets me through raising my boys. I can feel overwhelmed with worry over their futures and happiness. I am able to relax and enjoy our everyday moments because I have hope. I have faith we will do our best to make our house a home, teach our boys to be productive members of society, and show them they can do good and make a difference.
It may feel like it’s impossible to solve the worlds problems from where we stand, but if we start at home, everyone of us can make a difference. Teach your children to be kind, donate your time or money to better someone’s life, work to improve your own community, and always treat the world around you the way you want to be treated.
I have hope.
