Hope Is a Ladder That Must Be Climbed

Hope is the super verb of human progress.

I think Hope is a muscle that is not used enough in powering daily progress in our lives. I did some digging on its value and paradigm and here is some wisdom from the masters worth using.

When writing about hope, St. Thomas Aquinas noted that hope is born from the desire for something good that is “difficult but possible to attain.”

I see hope as the leverage that we can use to push our minds and body to get out of our comfort zones and self-improve. Hope is not some soft feeling that you have when you are feeling sorry for yourself. It is a verb that wears combat boots and jumps into the swollen river of doubt and keeps walking until she gets to the other side. It is a skill, when understood and practiced daily can turn up our energy source a notch higher than our normal state.

1. Hope is a mental state that can alter our neurochemistry.

The positive physiological effects of hope are well-documented, most eloquently in Jerome Groopman’s “The Anatomy of Hope,” where he writes: “Researchers are learning that a change in mind-set has the power to alter neurochemistry. “Belief and expectation — the key elements of hope — can block pain by releasing the brain’s endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effects of morphine. In some cases, hope can also have important effects on fundamental physiological processes like respiration, circulation and motor function.”

2. Hope is a positive virtuous cycle of belief and action.

According to Shane Lopez, author of the book “Making Hope Happen,” studies show that hope promotes healthy behaviors, including fruit and vegetable consumption, regular exercise, safe sex practices, and quitting smoking. “In each case,” writes Lopez, “hope for the future is clearly linked with daily habits that support health and prevent disease.”

That’s because hope triggers a virtuous cycle. Hopeful people conjure a vision that sustains them, that causes them to show up for the hard work and accept setbacks, Lopez says. They invest in the future that pays off in the present: in the way they eat, exercise, conserve energy, take care of themselves, and stick to their treatment plan.

3. What hope is — and isn’t

There is a thin line between hope and denial, and that line is an unwavering commitment to truth and reality.

Groopman writes: “False hope does not recognize the risks and dangers that true hope does. False hope can lead to intemperate choices and flawed decision making. True hope takes into account the real threats that exist and seeks to navigate the best path around them.”

There is a profound difference between hoping and wishing, he continues. Wishing encourages passivity, whereas hope represents an active stance. “Wishing is the fantasy that everything is going to turn out OK. Hoping is actually showing up for the hard work.”

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

4. Hope is a set of skills that can be made into a life-enhancing habit

This way of thinking about Hope is confirmed by other master thinkers in positive psychology as well. As a specialist in positive psychology, Charles. R. Snyder studied how hope and forgiveness can impact several aspects of life such as health, work, education, and personal meaning.

Hope is the sum of the mental willpower and waypower that you have for your goals.

The Psychology of Hope, Charles.R. Snyder

He postulated that three main things make up hopeful thinking:

Goals — Approaching life in a goal-oriented way.
Pathways — Finding different ways to achieve your goals.
Agency — Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals.

In other words, hope was defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.

Snyder argues that individuals who can realize these three components and develop a belief in their ability are hopeful people who can establish clear goals, imagine multiple workable pathways toward those goals, and persevere, even when obstacles get in their way.

5. Hope is a mental muscle that can be trained to transform any paradigm.

Hope is a muscle in your mind that you can stimulate to create a compound effect over time that can transform your life.

One way to start using this is to use mental mantras.

A Mantra is a chant that you create for yourself to trigger the Hope effect in your mind. It is a set of words or a sentence or a sound that you use to let your mind know that you are being hopeful. It is an ideal way to replace any fear or doubt that creeps up in the mind. So for example, I use the mantra of “I do thy will” as a mantra to guide my actions.

In saying these words I let go of my ego and dedicate the actions of my day at the service of my higher eternal self. Every time I feel doubt or hesitation, I repeat this mantra to myself and this clears the mind of the thoughts that cloud my actions and restores the belief in them. This mantra acts as a reset and a refresh in the course of my day and keeps me calm, energized, and focussed on the tasks I have set for myself to achieve my goals.

I discovered the power of mantras when I started to meditate. I used to use the Aum sound to trigger calm into my senses. At its simplest, the word ॐ (Aum, Om) serves as a mantra, it is believed to be the first sound which was originated on earth. Aum sound when produced creates a reverberation in the body which helps the body and mind to be calm.

For me, a chant is a way of creating a note of passionate possibility into the chaos of the everyday mundane. That is why I really like the quote from Soren Kierkegaard below:

Hope is a passion for the possible.

Søren Kierkegaard

I added more mental chants as time passed to help my mind focus on the actions and not on the fears of their consequences. This has been a powerful tool in improving my choices in the last few years. Mantras have come to my aid when making positive choices on how I live my life and how that life helps those I come into contact with.

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. Nelson Mandela

6. Hope is a mirror that helps me to face defeats in my life but not get defeated by them.

You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.

Maya Angelou

7. Hope is a perfume that makes me yearn for achieving my goals while taking a small step in that direction.

If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

8. Hope is a lens in my mind that makes me see the good in the grief and shows me a path or a method to use that to grow.

Scared and sacred are spelled with the same letters. Awful proceeds from the same root word as awesome. Terrify and terrific. Every negative experience holds the seed of transformation. Alan Cohen

Coda:

Hope is a tool of Titans. Don’t ignore it. Pick it up and use it as a skill and make it a habit. It will first calm your fear. Then it will strengthen your resolve. And then it will drive your focus. Until you Have what you Hoped.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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