A new way to think about hope peace and joy

PEACE & JOY AND YOUR POWER OFHOPE

So what  most people  think  of “hope”  only a slice of what it really  is and really takes.  So you hear  people say -‘at first we were or I was  hopeful….but now I’m not so much so.”    Or  you hear  some say there is little or no hope.  Well under the wimpy  definition of hope that  most  people  employ… they  are probably  correct.  today I am going  to ask  you to give hope a new meaning.

Instead of thinking of  hope as a monolithic  concept think of it as a complex  powerful force within you that  you have  control  over.  I

So  to begin with  when I ask  you to hope along with me… I will offer you this  new definition in terms of  an acronym .  

H—is for  Hard Work

O is for  Optimism 

P is for Persistent  and 

E is for Experimenting

If  you want to have hope—then expect if you want it to pay  off you are going to work hard  at pushing life in the direction you hope to go.   You have  to want something  badly enough to behave  like you want it.  Hope  is  not and cannot  be a mystery to those around  you.   Let  your  network  know  this is what  you want the universe  to deliver (universe meaning  the holy spirit —your friends—the force—whatever you determine ifs the most  relevant  in your situation)   Simply  work hard  enough and let  people  know what direction  you want to go.

Second  being optimistic is  critical for  several reasons.  Most important  if your  hope is going to come true you may  have to be a leader  of a small tribe who is pulling for you.    If you say things like “I doubt  this can  happen but I hope we can  do it.”  It will be  difficult to recruit  the army  you may need.  Also if you don’t  require optimism you will often fall prey  to “energy vampires.”  These are the people who  well to put it  in its simplest  form… Aaare there people who exhaust  you just by being around?  They are  vampires.  Are there people  who  more or less demand an explanation for everything you propose?  They are vampires.  You might not  immediately  identify  these folks as  naysayers because  they sometimes come along with the cause and are “helpful…but they do little to boost  the control of your hope.

Persistence …. There is a real misconception that hope is momentary and linear  concept that doesn’t require you  to fall down and then get  up  again—hope springs eternal  because that’s  what it takes sometimes.  To getwhatyou hope for you sometimes have to take a run or two at the wall or  chip away the  canyon by chipping away at it or  running the water over it for a while…sometimes 

E is for Experiments… Well part of that persistence thing is being willing to  try several things —some of which  will not work.  However if you look at  life as an experiment then “failures become “findings” and clues to further research.   You are  giving  things not only a second try…but a smarter or wiser try.  The key component  to this aspect of hopeis that a scientist  or researcher rarely views themselves as failing  as long as  they are learning.   In this  way a mistake may not be the end of hope but something  that  makes your ultimate  goal or plan more  likely.  

Well  I’m inviting you to think of hope  this way in the context of peace and joy—for reasons  that may be very obvious  by  now…however.. just in case I will  clarify.

Developing  apeace is not an accident and joy often comes  to those  who maintain hope.  

More on the next few days about  hope…for now just consider  the new meaning  Ioffered  here.

and have a great  Monday (or whatever day it is when you  are reading this.  

Peace  & Joy