HOPE

The most powerful remedy on this planet.

- Santosh Pattanaik

"To live to cease to live." without hope is - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

While hope is a personal experience and one that can be challenging to define the value and positive impact it can have on human life is widely recognised and difficult to ignore. In fact, there's no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow. 'Hope' is a powerful tool for survival. Life exists until hope is alive.

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all." - Emily Dickinson

With the pandemic heading into its third year, the ongoing war in Ukraine, the almost daily evidence of impending climate disaster, global supply chain disruption, and inflation among other woes, sustaining hope has become more important than ever.

When things look bleak, remaining hopeful is one of our toughest and most essential self-management tasks. Not only is it a challenge to imagine any future in a world where things are constantly changing, but it's especially tough to think - let alone expect a future in which things are actually somewhat positive.

It's of course easy in these difficult, uncertain times to lose hope. And yet, hope is essential to our satisfaction, motivation, health, and performance.

Bringing discipline to hope starts with conscious work to imagine a better future continues with planning which supports that future, and is made resilient. If you cannot imagine a better future, keeping hope is impossible.

A lack of positive future imagery is associated with depression, and the intrusion of strong negative imagery is associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.

What Is Hope?