How to Not Lose Hope: 10 Ways to be keep our hopes alive

How to Not Lose Hope: 10 Ways to be keep our hopes alive

Hope is a powerful feeling that we do not want to lose. Hope ignites our soul. It sets ablaze our will and vigor within us channeling into the endless possibility that lies ahead of us. Hope empowers us into thinking that things will be fine again; things will become better and eventually whatever we are doing will be worth it in the end. This beautiful yet magical hope is engraved in the very core of us.  Whatever we do, we start it from a hope. Humans have an amazing power to hope beyond hopelessness.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.― Tom Bodett

  Sadly, now it has been shrouded over by external circumstances.  Things are getting worse each day. We have never been into a situation like this before. Future seems dull and blurry with no control over it to the point we cannot look at it without dismay. But a mere hope keeps us going. It builds bridges between us and the future. So, in this article, I will be sharing with you, how to not lose hope in order to kindle that hope that is already within us. Especially now in the times of adversity, hope can be the only fuel that will keep us going.

1. Understand it will take time

We regard time as precious and cannot get enough of it. How it is slipping from our hand moment by moment. As a consequence, we have been taught we shouldn’t waste time since childhood. We should do everything and have everything without a waste of time. And luckily, with the help of science, we have been able to manage time effectively. We are now habituated with having things at the speed of light. Phones have come with increased RAM, increased storage. We upgrade to the internet that gives us more speed per second. We don’t have to sit with receiving letters months after. We can communicate in an instant. In the midst of all this, we have forgotten some things do take time. We are used to hearing viral news and believe how others achieve instant success but how we ourselves are so far from it. We also want the same success that of others without having to wait. We ask ourselves, why we are to wait when waiting is so hard.  And eventually give up because of impatience. We all have done this in some point of our life. We have started some project and realizing it will take some time gave up our hope and gave into hopelessness.

This shows “why we are to wait” comes with its own perk. While we can get away with it in some aspect of our life, this want of not waiting has a detrimental impact on us. We indulge ourselves in this harmful thought and behavior; hasten our way to the maximum limit to only get disheartened in the end.  Even right now we want something to happen as fast as it is possible. We want to succeed in our career as fast as we can. We want this quarantine to be over as soon as possible. But we should remember that some things do take time whether we want to wait or not. Nature has its own pace. Earth is going to rotate at its own pace. We cannot just increase our day and decrease our night for our benefit nor can we make Earth rotate fast to make this time pass soon. Just because we are habituated to get things at a faster pace in some areas, doesn’t mean it will work in all areas. It will take time for the muscle to grow from the workout you are doing. You aren’t going to get fluent in language in a day. Understanding it will take time. It will take time to practice, to get habituated with language, to get fluent in the language. Understand that the book you are reading will take time to finish. Wisdom lies in understanding this current situation will also take time to return to our normal ways. I know it is hard but it is truth but we can cope up with it.

The reason for our impatience to grow day by day is because work is so easily concealed these days and we are used to seeing the final product without knowing how much hard work and time has been poured onto it. We expect the same from us i.e. to get results as fast as we can, to not put much effort, to get the best result now on the spot. We want it in all aspects of our life like as we project this to the current situation. Ultimately we break down in the end. Hope gets hazier in this process and we are left with hopelessness. That song you listened, the painting you looked, the dance choreography you watched, the food that you tasted. It took time for them to master those skills to be that beautiful. It is unreasonable thing to demand ourselves when we haven't put same effort and same time the person we are looking at has put. However, we can do so too. If we just don't hurry our way into it and put our efforts daily. We should remember things do take time. I also have to remind myself time and again that whatever I am expecting is unreasonable too and that way I can stop myself whenever I push hard on myself. In this way, we can all stay hopeful. Relax and don’t be hard on yourself for not being able to achieve whatever you have set to for now. Moreover just because we have to wait doesn’t mean we cannot make most out of this moment. We can. It will take time for things to be normal again. Let’s not lose our hope. Meanwhile, what we can do is..

2. Having something to look forward to

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.― Robert Fulghum

Having something to look forward to creates hope in us miraculously for the same reason that we have hope within us even in shadows. So, have something to look forward to daily. It may be simple as sitting in sun, spending time with your family, calling friends, playing with your pet, trying to learn your favorite recipe, watching the new series, trying new things, continuing learning, studying, reading books, painting, writing poems, dancing to your favorite songs, listening to sound of rain. Make a to do list in the morning daily. Write what you want to do. I believe it gets done when it is written down. Even if it doesn’t get done, write it out. Write things as mundane as you think. Plan your life. Have visions, have goals. We have been shown nowadays that seeing dream is just all in our head only to get demotivated. But I don't think so. Life has different stores for us. We may take different turns than we started with. But dream is our fuel. Dream is powerful. If you give in to power of hope, it can manifests dream as a reality. Everything in the world started with hope. You have been sent to this world with a hope. You have a purpose no matter how society has treated us to believe we don't have any. And most of the times, we try to seek purpose of our life. What we can do is make our life purposeful ourselves. So, ask yourself where you want to be. What you want to do. And visualize yourself as being there. Ask yourself how you want to grow. And hope your dreams will come true someday. That is the power of imagination and hope. It will come true. Even if it doesn't, growth is beautiful. We can strive to grow each day that way our potential is limitless. Now going back to to-do list, don’t only write what you have to do, write what you will do to relax yourself. Look forward to each day growing and learning and creating memories. Life is what you make of it. Create short term and long term goals for your dreams.  Celebrate as you approach each milestone no matter how small it is. It may take a very long time to achieve long term goals but with short term goals, we will get motivated within the way and make our goal attainable. That way the future that is far reached also seems familiar. Today, we are blessed with the internet. We can get vast knowledge and information from the internet to sharpen our skills so why not utilize it? It can be making something for ourselves, cooking, decorating, learning language, studying online. The possibilities are endless. We can take this time and turn it into something fruitful such that when everything is over, we will feel proud of ourselves for having kept on going even from our home and not limited by our external environment.

3. Create Routine

I believe routine keeps us being grounded even if things are falling apart. It just gives us peace of mind when we feel shattered. We all practice routine. It might be as simple as making bed every morning, opening curtains to let light in, eating our meals on time, cleaning our room. We can incorporate some good habits like exercising into routine and reading before sleeping. Such simple actions will make us realize sometimes life is as ordinary as it gets as we savor every moment living fully. “Idle mind is the devil's workshop” And I think we all have the tendency to not stay still. We like to get amused. What we can do is build routine for ourselves to keep that hope alive in us.

 4.  Taking Mistakes as learning opportunities

“To err is human, to forgive is divine” We have all made mistakes. In addition we are still prone to make mistakes. Mistakes make us hopeless easily. Therefore in those hard times instead of panicking we should sit back, reflect and understand where it is going wrong. We can learn from others. We can learn from our own mistakes. We all know our shortcomings yet don’t act on it." Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results "-Albert Einstein

So, let’s focus on solving problems rather than thinking about problems. Forgive yourself for making mistakes. Forgive yourself for not knowing then. Give yourself this chance to improve. We all make mistakes one time or the other. Doesn’t mean every hope is gone to improve. There is still hope. As long as we are alive, as long as we are breathing, there is still hope. So, keep trying. Keep open to learning so that you will know what changes you have to make to see different results. It’s important to sit back, reflect, change or accept rather than being overly positive just to get disheartened.

 5. Keep trying

There is really no shortcut in life. We need to put in work. We need to go through pain. We cannot skip this step. However this doesn’t have to be boring. What we can do is be flexible with ourselves in between the works and taking rest but keep on trying.

Oftentimes, in today’s world we would rather trust other’s opinions instead of ours. If others cannot do it, we think we cannot. If others say we cannot do it, we cannot. We give up easily. It doesn’t mean we should stand out for the sake of standing out. Sometimes, the journey you are taking may be lonely. People may doubt your abilities. If we just keep on listening to others, we’ll be fearful in trying. We will doubt ourselves. We will feel like we are hopeless. But every so often, you have to acknowledge that spark within you before others see flame inside you. The spark of passion. Once we try, we will realize it wasn’t as bad or as hard as we thought. Life is about living. No matter how much we spend reading or watching motivation, it will only work only when we apply it. In living, we learn things we have never learnt before. Every successful ventures started with an attempt but not just one attempt. Attempt after attempt. When we keep on trying, we will find the joy in living.

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen,child. Anything can be.― Shel Silverstein

 Our not trying also answers why we lose hope in the first place. Why we think we cannot do something, something is not right, we are going to fail, something isn’t worth working for. Maybe we listen more to others before trying. So, let’s be open to keep trying. Maybe we aren’t hopeless as people thought we were. Times when we do tend to listen and believe our narrative is when we think how a thing can go bad, how this and how that could go wrong.  It’s good to be skeptical but we cannot move forward if we always keep on doubting. I will tell you again everything started with a hope not with "It will go wrong and I won't try mentality". As I told in my previous article, World is changed by someone who does more than who doubts.

 6. Don't aim for perfection

Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles. – Samuel Smiles

We are very influenced into thinking that whatever we are seeing in our surroundings  were perfect from the beginning like miracles except us. We lose hope thinking we will never be able to reach the place thinking how others are already there. We should realize that everything started from somewhere as nothing or having utilized the knowledge they already have. We need to see that even big business started from a small place. Steve Jobs started Apple in his garage which is famous now. If we have a hope, we can start from wherever we are with whatever we have and turn it into reality. So don’t aim for perfection from the start. Instead start with a draft.

 7. Love the process

While we are fixated on making the future good, we forget this moment. While it is good to work on short and long term goals so that the future is secured, we forget the bliss of the present. Love your life as it is. At this present moment, we operate at the level of inadequacy. We have to have more. And this more is taking soul out of us. Understand sometimes little is more. We can love the way as it is. How each cell in our body is working in harmony. We are shown by society that our existence is complimented by how much we possess. That’s why we keep on hoarding. But do we really need so much stuff? If we just sit back and ask ourselves do we really need to have that much? For whom? Then we can realize it is just what we were made to feel. We may not need them. Happiness can be achieved in simple things. We can best understand this by this quarantine. How we have little but we can keep ourselves happy. So, let’s be grateful for whatever we have. Life is a blessing. This breath you are taking is a blessing. Nomatter how much society has treated you inferiorly, your life is a blessing. Your life is precious. Love your life. It is a beautiful gift. After all when we die, we aren’t going to take the materials with us.

 8. Connecting 

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future. – Nelson Mandela

Humans have an amazing power of connecting. This connection makes us realize we all go through the same feelings. So, connect with your loved ones. Share with them if you are feeling hopeless. Sometimes all it takes us to feel hopeful is someone’s words. Just hearing simple words like it’s going to be okay changes the entire day completely. Seek help. It’s okay to seek help from others and seek professional help if you are feeling down. It’s going to be okay. There is no shame in feeling such a way. We all feel that way. Connecting with others helps us lift ourselves from the hopeless pits.

 9. Plant a seed

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hope is something, we can cultivate within before others do. We can be hope for others. We can give to others. We can see hope in others. It just multiplies. And when we just plant a small seed of action, it grows. Many businesses we see today were planted as a small seed. Many beautiful buildings that we see were built by a small vision. So, starting from today, plant a seed where you want to be. Work for it. And someday it will work. Someday, our seed of hope will turn to a beautiful tree.

10. Things may not be fine but we will be 

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

There were many times in our life when we weren’t fine but we persevered and here we are right now. We can do this time too. Having hope doesn’t mean to dwell on hope and expect things to be fine.  It is not useful to be overly positive. I think as long as you are breathing, as long as you are alive, there is a hope. Hope seems like a fantasy. It is if we keep on insisting on it. There should be balance in it. It can be by accepting reality as it is and to keep doing what we can from our side. There are so many more things that are possible to happen than dwelling in our head. There is nothing more powerful than a person who believes in themselves. As much as we are made to believe things will not be fine now, I still hold on to this thought that things will be fine and normal again. I do give up my hope every now and then but just that thought of everything returning to normal again keeps me going. Let’s all believe in that hope. That hope that kept us going till now. We can do this like all those time we did.

 You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.― John Lennon

Some day what we are feeling will be over. We will be united again. It may not seem like it but if we help from our individual level, we can. It is a very hard time for all of us and it is harder to stay positive all the time. What we can do is take little baby steps and have faith in whatever we are doing and keep going. Maybe we will reach, maybe we won’t. But whatever we are feeling will be lessened. Take care. I hope my article helps you. I would love to hear what keeps you hope these days. Thank you so much for reading my article. I wish you healing.