5 Ways to Build More HOPE

1. Hope is internal. The true source of hope is internal. External sources like caring parents, great teachers, and empowering experiences also mean a lot but the external cannot do anything for the individual unless the hope has already been waiting there. You have to realise that no one can give you hope, neither can any bad experiences/bad individuals take it away. Just as Christopher Reeve once said, “Once you choose hope, anything is possible”; you have to understand that it is YOU who chooses hope for yourself.

2. Hope grows when you share it. Only when the goals and ambitions of people are aligned and they share hope, are they able to become successful? A brief greeting to a person who looks sad can only enlighten their day. It can give that person a ray of hope and they might even pass that ray to another person. Sharing hope will always make you feel positive and hopeful, yourself.

3. Hope grows when it is tested. Resistance, trouble, situations requiring patience and persistence turn a small hope into a bigger hope. People nowadays, tend to give up on their hopes easily, and even carelessly. This is exactly where hardship comes in. Hardships can be a great teacher and an education for us. Many people refer to hardships as the school of Hard Knocks too. Only when you fight hardships and test your hope, your hope will grow.

4. Hope grows through bigger hopes. The book “Hope is a decision” by Daisaku Ikeda states “real hope is found in committing ourselves to vast goals and dreams” which is exactly what everyone has to understand. If you ever feel that you’ve lost hope in life, the probability of you lacking big hope and goals is high. You should look within yourself to find big hope, after all, hope is found within you itself.

5. Hope grows when we value life itself. Miguel de Cervantes wrote in Don Quixote: “While there’s life there’s hope.”, this is something that all of us should relate to. Whenever you suffer in life, you should write your own mantra that reminds you that if you are alive, the story is not over; things can still change for you; you can still change; anything can still happen.

Walt Whitman always believed that this is how he is going to win in life, through the power of self. We too have to believe in that and propagate it.

After all, Hope is the greatest thing that can help us get through the darkest of times :)