I have been thinking about it a lot over the past month.
Thinking about the way that our lives are interconnected. How our experiences touch and shape the lives of each other, and I have hope. I have hope in the decency of humanity, even when most of the images and impressions I have seen lately are of the ways that we hurt each other.
A friend posted pictures of his family Disneyland trip to his social media account, and a stranger used the N word to describe his 7 year old bi-racial son.
Bombings.
A passenger being physically assaulted and removed from an airplane.
I have hope.
I have hope, because I also see the good. I have to search harder for it, but it is there. I see what you are doing to make a difference and help others.
I see you immediately defending a child and renouncing racism.
I see you organizing relief workers, protesting, and raising money to protect the innocent.
I have hope, because I hear you saying, “This is wrong. Oh My God! Look at what you did to him!”
I have hope in humanity, because you are no longer silent, and you are taking action.
I know that change doesn’t come quietly.
It comes through raising our collective voices, and insisting that the way things are must change, because we are all connected. Societal evolution comes through recognizing that what you do as an individual, the choices you make, and injustices you work to correct make a collective difference in the quality of all life. It’s what we experience together.
I have hope, because I choose to #FocusOnJoy Click To Tweet
I have hope, because I am choosing to focus on the good that you are doing.
I know that one person can make a difference, and you are doing that. It might not be featured on a news segment, or publicly acknowledged. Negative news sells, but what you do brings me hope.
I see you organizing a free fishing day, in the mountains of Idaho, for 53 African refugee children.
I see you visit 3rd world countries to help the poor and needy.
I see you welcome an adoptee as family new found family because you share DNA .
I have hope, because I choose to focus on joy.
Genealogy Jen’s Challenge of the Week- Have I done any good in the world today? What have you done to help another person in need today? Start small. Call a friend. Reach out and recognize someone who is working to focus on joy.
What good have you seen in the world today? Comment and let me know.
I’m with you, Jen. I stay with hope and trust. The world has been crazy before (as have people) and people have risen above the craziness as they are now, as they will when the next round of crazy comes around in twenty or fifty or a hundred years. When I discovered the philosopher Hegel’s idea that we humans are in a spiral of ever widening spiritual growth in consciousness (even when it becomes displaced from time to time), I decided to adopt that as mine.
What a wonderful idea, Janet. I think our greatest collective struggles have lead to enlightenment and growth.
Beautifully stated! Thank you for putting into words what many of us feel with the “news of the day”. What a drain it can create. Thank you for your words of hope.
“I have hope, because I also see the good. I have to search harder for it, but it is there. ”
That is also what keeps me going. I see so much that is bad in what is happening around the world that I often don’t want to remain a part of it. But to know that there are many good people out there stops me from going completely under.
I do what I can with what I have. I often feel it isn’t much but when you total up all the good stuff, it is great. I just hope it is great enough.
Oh it is great enough Linda! “By small and simple things do great things come to pass.”
Thanks for letting your light shine.
Very well said… our collective voices do matter and will change the tide of negativity.
Thanks Charlie. I agree!
Hi G-JenC,
Hope is an interesting concept for me because I have pretty much lost it. I remember feeling hopeful on a number of occasions, but not recently. My work has killed most of it. Yet, I live and it comes to me in the smallest ways: a single flower, a good metaphor, a conversation that lifts me in some way, the rare times when evil and money don’t prevail, a good night’s sleep; things like that, but I am afraid I have lost the big idea of hope. I guess I have seen too much and all of the sadness in the world is very vivid in my mind, overwhelming on a number of levels. Oh well, I guess our differing perspectives is what gives color to the world. Nothing more hopeless than people always blankly agreeing; wearing white clothes and white slippers, in a high rise city; death by a million limp handshakes. Thanks. Duke
Duke, it’s clinging to the hope in the small things that keeps me here too. I love your work, and that you’re not afraid to explore the darker sides of human nature.