Hope and Living Powerfully

The next time you find yourself hoping for something, take a close look at the quality of this hope and what is being hoped for. We are not in a position to live powerfully if we are hoping for something out there to happen, some external event that will make us feel better or make life easier. In fact, a close look at such hope may find that it results in a loss of power and a victim stance. Life lived powerfully is not a waiting game for this thing or that to somehow line up as we hoped. What happens in this posture? Among other things, we just get older.

Always we hope
Someone else has the answer
Some other place will be better
Some other time it will turn out

The place to live powerfully is not within the space of hope; it is within the circumstances that life brings us, fully immersed and looking for what works or what brings us peace. Hoping life’s circumstances change rather than changing ourselves within life’s circumstances is a recipe for futility and frustration. Coming forward to meet life on its’ own terms, even with our misfirings and failures, is far more likely to result in a fulfilled life than a reliance on our hopes and wishes and longings for life to be different than it is. It is in how life is that we find our power, using as a guide the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”

No one else has the answer
No other place will be better
And it has already turned out*
*Lao Tzu