Nurturing Hope

By - Akangjungla 

In today’s world, overwhelmed by negativity and challenges, nurturing hope can prove to be a powerful tool for motivating social change. One unified goal for anyone is to feel secured, free from anxiety about the future. Some dictionary defines hope as ‘to want something to happen or to be true, and usually have a good reason to think that it might’ or ‘to cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or be true.’ From the religious point of view ‘hope is not wishful thinking but hope is a confidence.’ A piece published by the Harvard Health Publishing, the contributing author writes that ‘Hope is an essential component of our well-being.’ Brian Lawlor, GBHI Site Director, Trinity College Dublin asserts “hope is not optimism, which is a belief that everything will work out.” In an opinion piece published in The Irish Times, Lawlor elaborates that “Hope is much more active, a feeling and a mindset that you have to work at in order to achieve your goals, despite trying and extenuating circumstances.”

The theme of hope serves as the continuity of time and the transition from the old to the new. To be confident, expectant and optimistic expresses the face of hope. With movement and action applied to the idea of hope, these expressions can be manifested; it means the approach to hope must be guided by consciousness of commitment and execution with the expectation to achieve positive outcome. The content of hope comes from the place of recognising the need for change and making room for progress. 

Human nature has become such that we hold on to our own understanding, thoughts and knowledge, and push for it until the others agree or there is a disagreement. The truthfulness about one’s identity and relevance often discovered or revealed only in community with others has thinned out. If we were to go back to a decade or so, the feeling of excitement breeding from belonging to a community and living a shared experience was on a daily basis occurrence. The idea of ‘shared’ and ‘collective’ guided the people. The association as a community benefited the individuals as it offered them sense of togetherness, safety and security, social support, among other benefits. 

The idea of shared hope was shared in a previous editorial. The interaction between the shared hope and community life put together a fertile ground to attain the confident goals one hopes to achieve in the future. Shared hope leads to common action. The world remains caught up in so much distress and ambiguity - be it war, disease, poverty, corruption, injustice. And every time someone is asked ‘what is your hope for the new year?’ their answer directs towards the need to look at the world through the eyes of the shared faith and hope, and rarely as a single person. Inorder to live through the hospitality of time, and to arrive at the place of confident expectancy, it will require for mankind to hold on to the active characteristic and the eternal nature of hope. Shared hope is where we will reclaim the sense of togetherness, safety and security and support.

The idea of shared hope can be translated as the collective hope that transcends the individual, and one that is motivated by sense of solidarity and love. Cultivating collective hope into action can begin from a place of refusing to feed the negative and the problem, and instead nurturing respectful relationship, being grateful and harnessing the power of community.

Comments can be sent to akangjungla@gmail.com
 



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