The Happiness of Hope
Another friend of mine lost her job today. She’s not the first. Three other friends have found themselves in the same predicament over the course of the past year. They serve to make the statistics real to me. The monthly numbers – 600 thousand one month, 700 thousand the next - are real people. Probably some of them are your friends and acquaintances. Maybe one of them is you . . . or soon will be.
Even when you suspected that the loss of your job was a possibility, the reality of finding yourself unemployed always hits you as shock. Not only has your accustomed source of income disappeared, but your whole way of life and all your plans and expectations for the future have suddenly vanished. You shift into emergency gear and scramble to assess what assets you have and how you can best ration them to get you through.
As I have watched my friends cope with their altered circumstances, it’s become clear to me that the primary asset you can bring to bear on the situation is an attitude of hope.
Why hope? Well, first of all, hope keeps you from feeling helpless. It assures you that you’ll find ways to manage. It enables you to look for the possibilities your situation provides for moving your life in a different, and potentially more meaningful and satisfying direction. Hope makes all the difference.
Hope broadens your vision. It lets you look within at the strengths and skills you have and the new ways you might put them to use. It lets you see that you are bigger than the job you were in let you be. It lets you expand your view of the outside world, too, as you consider new ways of interacting with it. You see fields of work you never thought seriously about before, you recognize contacts you have or could make that were outside your range of vision. Hope gets you out there, poking around for openings.
Hope can expand your sense of adventure and encourage you to dare things your previous view of yourself and the world didn’t allow.
And finally, hope helps you keep your perspective, to recognize that where you are now is simply a transition zone to a future that you can shape with your imagination and choices. It allows you to see that regardless of how today went, tomorrow is a new day. Hope lets you sleep in peace. And when tomorrow dawns, with hope in your heart, you’ll make the most of it.
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