Posts tagged Ups And Downs

Have you ever stopped to think about the word hope and its impact on your life? I have a weird relationship with the concept of hope. At times, I am filled with hope, wanting and believing in a brighter future, a better tomorrow. Then with a blink of an eye, I find myself hopeless, filled with doubt and darkness. And to set the record straight, I am not bi-polar, nor am I suffering from a chemical imbalance.

Late January 2010, I was one of many survivors of a company layoff. With seeing good talent, my friends and coworkers walking out the door, the darkness was just beginning. After the layoffs, the next strike was pay cuts and finally the elimination of merit increases. It was a 1 – 2 – 3 strike out. Darkness not only crept in, it made itself at home.

Minutes felt like days and days felt like years. The post efforts from the executive team were minimal. Communication was completely absent, leaving the employees to make up their own stories as to what may be transpiring within the company. Good news filled the future with all kinds of possibilities, and bad news had you laid off by the end of the week. The concept of hope turned into a rollercoaster, pulling you up out of your seat with the highs and dropping your stomach and making you nauseas with the lows.

I hadn’t given much thought to the concept of hope until I stumbled upon a lost trinket in the company’s parking lot. As I walked into work, I literally found a little hope. It was a gold butterfly trinket with the word hope etched on it. Unaware of my state of mind, unaware of the recent ups and downs of my emotions, as I picked up the trinket, I had to ask for the meaning. Life had given me messages or gifts in the past, but nothing this overt.

As I walked into my office, I sat down thinking about my discovery. ‘Hope’, what does it mean to have it, when do you lose it, and how does it come back to you? On a personal and professional level, I was inspired to answer these questions.

Hope, what does it mean to have it? Gosh, when I started to look around, I realized evidence of hope is all around us. Hope, a feeling, is a desire with expectations of obtainment, according to Merriam-Webster. Inspirationally uplifting, here are a few examples I discovered when looking for hope: Gunnar Sandberg, age 16, was joined by his fellow teammates to show their support, love and hope around the Oakland Athletics’ pitching mound, as he threw out the first pitch. Gunnar Sandberg suffered a critical head injury when he was hit by a ball from a metal bat. Recovery will be long, but is filled with hope. Freeway, a cute little 6 month old pup, was untied from a freeway onramp by a couple who took him in, neutered him, and made him available for adoption. The couple’s actions, as described by them, were in the spirit of hope, hope to provide him with a loving and caring family.

Freeway was adopted in less than a week, by a loving family who had hoped to find a suitable, lovable dog to replace a recent void. Hope collided with hope and as the adopted family states, the day Freeway was untied was the best day of their lives. Ben Pollock, his cousin Frank Doolin, and their boys (3), held on to hope after their boat sank 20 miles from the port of Hudson Florida. With one son already unconscious and the other two lethargic, weak, disoriented and hallucinating, twelve hours of floating in the nighttime 70 degree gulf waters was taking its toll. With the sun rising, Frank Pollock, devised a plan to attract boaters to their location by throwing a white cooler in the air, mimicking a seagull. Where there are seagulls, there are fish. As the morning progressed, a curious fishing group aboard the ‘InTheCooler’, (ironically enough) didn’t find fish but found and rescued them. The boys and both men survived. There are many more examples that could illustrate the power of hope. Hope, as I have become to understand it is a desire, a want, a need, which is then accompanied by a plan and an expectation of success or obtainment.

Hope, when do you lose it? To answer this question, you lose it when you have a desire, a want or a need, without a plan and/or no expectation of success or obtainment. Or maybe there is a plan but the plan is or seems too big or unachievable. I have met tons of people who are filled with hope but when asked about their plan, there is none. It’s not my job, nor is it my desire to take anyone’s hope from them but without an achievable plan, does it not then make them hopeless? For example, a married couple, plagued with frustrations, resentments and a lack of trust, hopes for a better marriage. Each hopes for a better relationship, but doesn’t know how to make it better, nor creates a plan or pathway for achievable success.

A brilliant, young, twenty something, woman wants a better life but continues to use her alcoholic dysfunctional survival skills given to her via childhood. She cries herself to sleep, alone, desperate, hoping tomorrow is better than today and hoping life will give her a break. Her circle of chaos does not include a different plan or pathway rather it’s the same day in and day out. For one last example, a company wishes to expand their market growth; the company places unbelievable pressure on everyone to do a better job: increase efficiency, decrease costs, drive in more volume, etc. Globally, a plan is not developed nor shared, leaving its employees to run in all directions and rendering them, as a collective group, unsuccessful and hopeless. Each of these examples of hopelessness can have devastating effects. If hope cannot be obtained, time after time, a person becomes less likely to want to have hopes and desires. Disengagement to life, health issues or even depression can develop which in turn makes the struggle back to being hopeful harder.

Surprisingly, I have found that even when people are hopeless or in a hopeless situation, they still have a component of hope, i.e. they still have a desire or a want, which helps keep the candle of hope burning. This can be seen in the examples I illustrated above. So, how does one return back to the full scope of hope. The answer is by creating and deploying a plan, a plan with achievable outcomes with realistic expectations of obtainment. There are many reasons why people do not put a plan in place. Fear of succeeding, fear of failing, fear of change….well, fear of change, if sliced and diced enough would lead us back to fear of success or failure. I was once told, ‘why have hopes, dreams, and goals, all you are going to end up with are a bunch of disappointments’.

Unfortunately enough, this statement came from a person who could not develop a plan with reasonable expectations of obtainment, and over time, became hopeless. The fear of success and failure is truly related to how the person views themselves, meaning the person who may have been successful or failed, defines themselves by this action. This definition of self is misplaced. Our definition of self is based on our values, purpose and our humility to learn. A plan is therefore a tool for greater learning, not a definition of who we are. If we were to allow our plan to define us, we would only be as good as our last plan. Given this, there are a lot of people who are hopeless but have great potential to fully embrace the scope of hope. A plan does not have to be elaborate. All it needs to have are small, achievable steps and with each step, a person is one step close to their desire, want or need.

Hope for me today is more than a feeling. To start it has been a journey. I have re-examined my life and connected with when I had hope, when I lost it, and, when I regained it. I had lost hope, specifically after my company laid people off, conducted pay cuts and eliminated merit increases. As I described above, I feared the stigma of failure and yet the failure was displaced as it belonged to my company. If I was chosen to be laid off after the initial round, it would not have been due to my own failure, but, theirs. With the fear in hand, I became detached and hopeless as there was no plan and no expectation that things would get better. The day I found hope (my trinket of hope) was the day I started the journey back to regaining it. Hope is inspirational; it’s legendary; and for me it’s taught me that I hold my success and I define who I am as a person based on values and purpose. As long as I have a desire, a want or a need and I can create an achievable plan with the expectation of obtainment, hope lives and burns within me. My journey has also taught me that hope is the first ingredient for delivering upon dreams; it brings people together; and it shapes our better tomorrows.