Sometimes the most basic of human needs are the hardest to understand. Hope is essential to happiness and a full life. Without it, we are in despair. Hope drives us forward and fills us with a positive vision of what is to come. The actual definition of hope is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen”. Our sense of overall hope is actually our perception of a culmination of a group of hopes we have, and the level of certainty of that each one will come to fruition. Hope is easiest at the beginning when expectation is defined or at the end when it is achieved. The struggle is in the middle to achieve it, or at the end if it is abandoned. Hope itself is not enough. You must take action to move toward what you hope to achieve. With each successive failure on the path to hope, hope erodes. The key is to fail until you succeed, or if needed adjust your hopes to be more realistic. There is a tenuous balance of patience (to not compromise), and persistence to fulfill your hopes. Let’s look at some common examples:

“I hope to find the love of my life.” This is definitely one of those hopes that is a balance of patience and persistence. The good news is this is a hope where you can fail many times, but you only have to succeed once. No one wants the pain of any failures, but knowing you can try again if it was not meant to be, is some comfort. It is also one of those hopes that moves from one hope phase to another. You find your love, then you hope to marry them, hope to have children, etc. This is also one of those hopes that you need your life happiness to not depend upon. Self-imposed pressure like that can prevent you from living a full life as a single person or rush to be with the wrong person.

“I hope to get a good paying job or business.” We all want to live comfortably. This is one of those hopes where your actions to help make it happen, is usually one of the longer paths in life. It takes time to gain education, and experience to develop into a good paying profession. Yes there are those more rare examples of wealth through a sudden successful venture, but hoping for those could be disappointing unless you keep it in perspective. The good news here is you can also fail (or change professions) multiple times until you find what you want. Work is one of those life paths that can change along the way and you must look for the markers for when to change.

“I want to look better and be as healthy as I can be”. Since this is the #1 News Year’s resolution, so it obviously has a place among the most common hopes. It has a lot of facets to it. Our weight, overall health, our eating habits, how we dress, etc. This is one of those life hopes you can never achieve and check it off your list. It is a lifestyle change. You may not ever fully achieve your hopes, but the fact that you have it and you act on it, will leave you healthier.

Biblical Hope: I would be remiss if I did not mention some of the spiritual aspects of hope. These are Christianity specific, but there may be similar beliefs in other religions. Biblical hope for believers is knowing there is a certainty both during and after physical life. During life it is knowing that despite any mistakes or brokenness you experience, you can always start over with the salvation of Christ, who has your burdens covered with his death. You just have to believe in him. Hope for us after this physical life has ended, is knowing that we transform to another dimension for eternity. One without pain and suffering and where we join the greater community of man with our spirits intertwined with God’s. I know this is very brief on Biblical hope, but there is a lot of other material available if you want to know more, or you may want to meet with someone from a church to discuss in more depth.

Here is an exercise I find useful. Take a blank piece of paper and just list out your hopes. You will be surprised that seeing them on the page will make you more aware of what hopes are helping determine your overall outlook on life. I had 9 of them, and noticed some were very task specific and short term, and others were longer outcomes I wanted from my life. It does make you evaluate what action or momentum you have on each one, along with more awareness of your current state of mind that you will achieve it. The key is never lose hope overall. I believe we are all put here for a purpose. Fulfill yours.