HOW TO HAVE HOPE DURING A PANDEMIC AND AFTER

“To Live Without Hope is to Cease to Live”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

This pandemic has created an intense amount of anxiety. Being stuck indoors most of the time has brought to light some people’s realization that they have lost the hope they once had for a better future. Hope is endemic to humanity. It is necessary in order to get the motivation to take even the first step in realizing your goals and vision for the future. There are times when circumstances and failures can dampen and all but extinguish the hope you used to feel about living. Sometimes age can make you feel like your life is over, and there is nothing to hope for. I believe that if you are still breathing, then a glimmer of hope is still there. That small flame can be fanned into a fire. Just a small amount of hope can lead you to the actions that will heap more fuel upon that fire until you are blazing again with, action, determination, confidence and a higher self-esteem.

How can you then begin to get back your hope?

Two famous researchers in the field of “Hope” are Charles R. Snyder and Beth Herths. Their models of hope view hope as a way to maintain personal motivation which ultimately results in a greater sense of optimism. Charles R. Snyder links “hope to the existence of a goal combined with a determined plan for reaching that goal”.

Karyn Hall Ph.D. writes “When you feel no hope and life begins to seem meaningless taking “one step out of your routine” can help break the sense of powerlessness you have. Being able to see how the steps you are taking will lead to desired change is critical to having hope. If you don’t logically see how what you are doing can have a positive result, then carrying out the plan will likely be difficult.” (Karyn Hall, Ph.D. Psychology Today, April 2015).

Below I have listed five things you can do now to start to create hope in your life:

1. Take the first step. It doesn’t matter what that step is. It can be doing five pushups, or fixing a dinner you haven’t tried before, it can be writing one page in your journal, or reading a chapter of a book you have meant to read for a long time. It doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with your job or future career. Taking one action in anything, will do worlds for beginning to instill hope in you once again.

2. Take some deep breaths, close your eyes, and try to think back to a time when you felt the most alive. It could be when you were coloring as a child, or a class you took on writing poetry, or something you did when you were older. Use that to think of one action you could take that could capture something you did when you felt that feeling. Don’t place any judgement on it or think that it is not something you would keep doing, just do one action from that time period.

4. Ms. Hall in her article also suggests “turning to your faith.” In the Bible Titus 1:12 it states that “hope means a strong and confident expectation of a future reward”. So, the challenge is, how do you go about expecting a future reward? The answer lies in the actions you take in your life, that you feel will result in those rewards. For the Christian saved by grace, it is believing that some actions in your life will carry with them a reward for the after-life. For those who would like a reward in this life, it is to take actions that will result in more confidence that you will ultimately see the fruition of your work.

5. Create a vision board by clipping out pictures from magazines that fill you with a feeling of aliveness. They don’t have to be things that you want in your future life, though they can be. The pictures could be as simple as a field full of flowers that make you smile. The action of putting the board together will begin to stir the embers of hope.

6. Read hope filled quotations. Here are some of my favorite ones but you can find them all over the internet. Just google “hope quotations”. Put those quotations on post it notes and place them in areas of your home that you will have to read them. I have a tag board full of scriptural quotes by my bed so when I turn my head, I have to read them every night. They don’t have to be scriptural though. Here are a few of my favorites:

“Everything that is done in the world, is done by hope.”

Martin Luther

“May your choices reflect your hope, not your fears.”

Nelson Mandela

“Hope is being able to see there is light despite all the darkness.”

Desmond Tutu

“In a time of destruction, create something.”

Maxine Hong Kingston

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief, and I believe love is stronger than death.”

Robert Fulghum

“Hope never abandons you, you abandon it.”

George Weinberg

“Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”

E.B. White

“Learn to ask even when you feel weak. Learn to work, even if you don’t want to. Learn to hope, even when the odds are against you.”

Maxine Lagace’

“Hope, is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it.”

Barack Obama

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