Hope is Our Path to a Better Future

Hope is the end all be all for progress at every level. If you have a goal that you wish to pursue it requires you to have hope that you can achieve it. If you wish to see positive change in your community hope is the foundation that allows you to build upon. And same thing across the globe it is the hope that things can be better that creates the possibility for the change to occur.

I have found this to hold absolutely true in my life as well. Pursuing betterment for myself has required an abundance of hope. Starting BJJ required hope that I could fit in and handle the fear that came with the new situation. Continuing BJJ has required hope that I would improve and get better at not getting smashed every time that I roll. Writing has required me to have hope that I could make progress and gain insights into how I could improve my approach to writing and conveying ideas.

Hope is the very essence of growth as a person. To me growing and making yourself better in the ways that are important to you is one of the key points to life itself. I keep finding as I allow my hope to grow for what I can accomplish the higher I reach and the more that I am able to achieve. I have hope that this is true as a community too. When we come together to see a vision of the future come to fruition, nothing can stop that. Fear and despair are defeated as long as hope lives. And even when things do not go according to plan, continuing to pair hope and action will lead to results!

I see a world where everyone has an opportunity to live a safe and happy life. With all of our individual and collective needs met. A planet that is healing and coming back into balance. A life for each of us that is a little bit slower and more intimate with our families and interests. A life not focused on acquiring wealth but focused on living well doing what we love with who we love. A life where judgment and fear may not be eliminated but a plethora of healthy coping strategies are available and encouraged. It is clear that we as individuals will never be perfect and we should plan on a world where that is expected and are each encouraged to look to grow.

A world where we integrate more with nature instead of paving it over. A world where technology actually helps us grow as people and pushes us to go out into the world instead of vying for our attention. I have hope that all of this is possible. In fact I know for a fact that it is. We have all seen small scale samples of all of this work well and lead to people flourishing. If we all decided that this was the type of world that we wanted we could make it happen.

On thing that is most frustrating about many of our problems today is that they have solutions. Solutions that may not be perfect but would be significant steps in the right direction. These types of solutions need people like you to have hope for, to begin to push forward and bring others along for the ride. We need to accept that no solution will be perfect while also ensuring that any solution we do pursue takes into consideration possible externalities. Life is complicated and trying to remove nuance from each situation is another part of our problem.

We have to have hope about a brighter tomorrow and do what we can as individuals to help bring that about. Remember that every kind deed is an act of hope. Being there for your kids is an act of hope. Choosing to pursue something with kindness is an act of hope. These small acts themselves may not feel like solutions to some of the daunting problems we face but they do help. Every act of kindness is a small step towards the world that I believe we all really want to live in.

Let me know in the comments below what gives you hope, my amazing family is what gives me mine. Sign up to receive email updates on when a new post goes live, thank you for reading!