Some believe in the power of hope and they want it, maybe even desperately, but they can’t find it, it eludes them. Or maybe they are afraid to get their hopes up again. Their hope has been dashed too many times. And, they find it is harder, every time, to pick themselves up after they are let down and begin to hope…again.

Others are really, powerfully angry at hope. They don’t believe in it, they don’t want to hear about it, wish people would stop fooling themselves with it. What good is hope really? Where did it get us? They believe that not only doesn’t hope help, but it hurts. It lets us down, hard.

But the first thing to think about in discussing rekindling hope is, why does hope matter? Why should we take the time or energy to rekindle it? Because if we don’t really understand what hope can do for us, why work hard to rebuild it?

My personal opinion is that many people hold many misconceptions about hope. What hope is, what it isn’t, how to recognize and generate hope, how to sustain hope, and why it even matters.

I began studying hope over a decade ago because it became clear it was critical to my life’s work. So, I interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people, I attended myriad workshops and discussions, I read about hope and I was astounded how vague many people were when putting their thoughts about hope into words, even many of those people who valued it and utilized it in their own life’s work (including myself.)

When I began giving keynote presentations and both short and extended workshops on hope, it became increasingly clear to me that I needed to develop an “elevator pitch” for why hope matters. I knew hope was central to my work and I knew hope was often wildly misunderstood and undervalued by many people who could hugely benefit from a change in the way they thought about hope. I spent years studying hope and years working to identify a way to easily convey the criticality of it.

And after much work toward that end, I came up with an eight word explanation for why hope matters.

HOPE IS THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION WHY

Why get out of bed in the morning?

Why work harder than you have ever worked when you feel worse than you ever knew it was possible to feel?

Why keep getting up every day, and putting one foot in front of the other, even when things seem to just keep getting darker?

HOPE.

It has been asked, lately, how is hope working for you (meaning, us, systemically) now? And the answer is simple, it isn’t.

Hope isn’t working for us now because we have lost it. Hope and action aren’t in the driver’s seat anymore. But when we had it, when it was doing the driving, well, at that time things looked, and were, very different. And they can be again.

We can rekindle hope, together and begin to make change, together. And change begins with hope and moves forward with action. We are then in a position to reset (higher!) expectations with more hope, change and action, celebrating along the way. Hope can begin a cycle of change, action and celebration that ripples out and profoundly changes the way we “do business”, individually and nationally.

Why do we begin with hope? Because in the same way a car needs fuel, we do too. And hope is fuel for action. When we have real, genuine hope we have more energy, difficult tasks are more easily undertaken. We are less inclined to go for immediate gratification, less inclined to want it easy, fast and cheap, and more inclined to take a step back, see the long view and work hard to build meaningful and sustainable change. Hope is a profoundly powerful fuel and it is one of the few things in this world that is free for us all.

With hope, we plant the seeds today so that tomorrow will be different.

So, how do we begin rekindling hope? First, we decide that rekindling hope is a priority. Then we begin to take action. Together.

-Kathleen

A couple of years ago we were a nation brimming with hope. There was an energy rippling across the country and you could almost feel it in the air. That energy came at the right time.  We knew that we faced serious, complicated, overwhelming challenges.  But despite this, there was a rippling sense of hope, a sense that maybe, just maybe, there was a way out for us. 

It was as though cynicism and passivity were relegated to the back seat, while hope and action leaped in to the driver’s seat. 

Flash forward to now – the beginning of a new year – 2011. 

We still face serious, complicated and overwhelming challenges. And for many people nothing much feels any different, well nothing except that it appears that now cynicism and passivity may be back in the driver’s seat again. And people are wondering what we will do if things simply don’t change? And wondering if there is any chance they even still can? 

Many people are really hurting and many people are really scared.

And there is a lot of talk about what to do. And there is a lot of finger pointing and assigning of blame.

Washington is to blame, the media is to blame, as is Wall Street, Republicans, Democrats, people who didn’t vote, people who did… There is a lot of blame circulating. 

And now with our hope diminishing, we find ourselves with all of the same problems we were facing a couple of years ago, but we are a little older now and a lot more tired. But now, we are also really scared. Things aren’t changing or they aren’t changing fast enough. What do we do? Where do we place our belief? Is it even possible to get out of the hole we are in, personally and as a nation?

And the answer is, of course it is possible to get out of the hole we are in. The verdict is out as to whether we WILL take the steps needed to do so, but we certainly can.

We are resilient. We CAN do this.

It will take time and effort and focus and passion and commitment. But we CAN do it.  And some of what we can do that will have impact is actually relatively simple. But simple should not be confused with three things many Americans have come to expect, or at times demand, in choice selection. Many Americans when making a choice prefer things are 1)easy, 2)quick  and 3) cheap.

We can do this but it won’t be easy or quick or cheap. But it is relatively simple.

Having had the profound honor of personally witnessing amazing personal turn-arounds of nearly completely fractured lives, turn-arounds no one would have ever thought humanly possible, I know we can do this.

What do we do?

That depends on who we are, where we are and where we want to go. Healing and moving forward won’t look the same for any two of us, it won’t begin in the same place, require the same path, or look the same way when we get there. So what we do will look different for each of us.

We are all unique, all different. And there is beauty and strength and power in our differences. And we can employ the power of our differences and do what we need to do, to turn this country and ourselves, around.

In this time of popular “reality” shows, imagine if we all began being a player in a national “reality” show.  Gandhi said, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”

Please join us as we begin a discussion of what we can do.

Until next time…

Kathleen

In a recent podcast interview with Sinikka Santala of Madison, Wisconsin we asked if there is one question she felt we should all be asking ourselves – click here Sinikka Santala – Something We Should All Be Asking Ourselves to listen to her response or visit http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/procovery-institute-podcast/id394224317 to listen to the entire two-part interview on our Procovery Institute iTunes channel!

We found Sinikka’s question both timely and compelling. The current widespread perception seems to be that we are facing ever-mounting crises with ever diminishing resources – or that we are essentially going to hell in a handbasket.

An alternative view however, and a view that formed the strong foundation for everything we have done and continue to do at Procovery Institute, is that this is, most definitely, not the case.  We hold the opposite view. We maintain that the most profound and sustainable transformation often comes about after it looks as though we are going to hell in a handbasket, and as a direct result of crises.

In essence, crises can serve as one kind of powerful fuel for change.

Sinikka’s thoughtful response has inspired us to begin a new blog series, Conversations We Should be Having.

We welcome you to join us, beginning tomorrow, and share this link or email with anyone you feel should be a part of the conversation, as we begin discussing Theodore Roosevelt’s (paraphrased advice), to “do what you can, with what you have, now.”

Until tomorrow…

Kathleen