What You Can’t Live Without

Man can live 40 days without food,
three days without water,
eight minutes without air,
but only one second without hope.
(Author unknown)

The answers to three critical questions makes plain the purpose hope plays in our lives. The three questions are: What exactly is it you can’t live without? What are the warning signs you may be hope deprived? What will move you towards a hope filled life? 

1.    What exactly is it you can’t live without?

Answer – You can’t live without a future expectation connected to a realistic pathway to get you there. Having a future expectation with a pathway gives you wings and a song to sing. You need faith to survive; plus a vision and a plan.

Hope is the thing with feathers; that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune–without the words,
and never stops at all. (Emily Dickinson)

Hope is “faith in the future tense.”

Hope is imagination placed in
the harness of faith. (Jürgen Moltmann)

Having a vision for your life allows you to live out of hope,
rather than out of your fears. (Stedman Graham)

Without anticipation, hope, goal setting, and planning – all features of future consciousness – we would be aimless, lost, mentally deficient, passive, and reactive. (Tom Lombardo) 

2.    What are the warning signs you may be hope deprived?

Answer – You are trapped by your past successes or failures and unable to create a realistic future expectation. You have an expectation but no pathway to get there and no grounds for believing it will come to pass. You have lost the will to fight for a better future. You are not accepting your trouble well at all and do not believe things will improve. You are trapped by your safety net and refuse to take any more risks.

There is some good in this world,
and it’s worth fighting for. (J.R.R. Tolkien)

 I am prepared for the worst,
but hope for the best. (Benjamin Disraeli)

Hope is the power of being cheerful in
circumstances which we know to be desperate. (G.K. Chesterton)

Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory. (Henri Nouwen) 

3.    What moves you towards hope filled living?

Answer – You move towards hope by embracing your misery as it is and in that embrace, you find traction to start writing a new script for the future. You start moving forward when you believe deep down that during the darkest night, light will spring forth in the morning. You move towards hope when you start doing what you know will get you moving – helping others, loving people, forgiving yourself, learning from history, exercising gratitude, leaping playfully, and smelling the flowers.

The miserable have no other
medicine but only hope. (William Shakespeare)

Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery. (Bertrand Russell)

Hope is brightest when it dawns from fears. (Walter Scott)

It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars. (Richard Evans)

If you go out and make some things happen,
you will fill the world with hope. (Barack Obama)

Before you give up hope, turn back and read the attacks that were made upon Lincoln. (Bruce Barton)

The word “Hope” the learned say is derived from the shorter one “Hop” and leads one into “Leap.” Plato, in his turn, says that the leaping of young creatures is the essence of play — so be it! To hope, then, means to take a playful leap into the future—to dare to spring from firm ground—to play trustingly—invest energy, laughter; And one good leap encourages another— On then with the dance. (Joan M. Erickson)

Now put one step in front of the other and walk forward with hope – embracing the life that awaits!

 What moves you towards hope filled living?

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