Always Have Hope

Always Have Hope

by Lawrence W. Reed

Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito, wrote the Roman poet Virgil in the First Century B.C. It’s commonly translated from the Latin as “Do not give in to evils but proceed ever more boldly against them.”

This is what truly good and admirable people do. They don’t surrender to evil. They don’t give in. It doesn’t matter to them how dark it gets. They press on. Darkness often is the crucible in which their character is tested and strengthened. Even in countries where socialism has produced a human disaster on a grand scale, lots of people are still hopeful for change.

Hope is not something you can touch, taste, smell or see but it’s powerful stuff, a compelling motivator. It’s a feeling—a premonition, perhaps. It’s a sense that something desirable and worthwhile can be achieved, acquired or realized even if obstacles appear insurmountable. To have hope is to possess a measure of confidence or optimism beyond what present circumstances may seem to justify.

Christians like myself are inspired by these words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 15: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

Here are some reasons why hope is important:

Hope is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It makes you work harder for your goals. Give up and you cede the field to the opposition without a fight. The opposite of hope is hopelessness, and I know of no context in which hopelessness improves matters. “The oil of hope makes life’s machinery run smoothly,” wrote James Lendall Basford in Sparks from the Philosopher’s Stone.

Hope is healthy. People who have hope are better off mentally, spiritually and physically because of it. Despair and pessimism drag us down in every way, making it even harder to prevail. “Hope is our friend,” opined Charles F. Raymond in Just Be Glad, “when every other friend has fled.” If you’re interested in the physical benefits of hope, see Dr. Andrea Bonior’s article in Psychology Today, titled The Health Benefits of Hope.

Hope makes you think. Reflect for a moment on the endless inventions that benefited humans. If their inventors hadn’t had hope, they would have stopped the very thought process that produced results. Nobody thinks much about possibilities if they focus on what they pre-determine is impossible.

Hope wins converts. It attracts others to your objective. It makes both your personality and your ideas magnetic. Nobody wants to sign up for a hopeless cause or work with people who exude discouragement.

Big, unexpected and positive changes that improve things have occurred often in history, reinforcing the old adage that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” The collapse of the old Soviet Union is a classic case in point.

I recently watched a good movie called “The Aeronauts.” It’s loosely based on the story of the pioneering English meteorologist James Glaisher. At a time (1862) when science scoffed at the notion that weather was predictable, he and an associate ascended to a height of at least 30,000 feet in a balloon to prove otherwise. They succeeded. At the conclusion of the film, the soft voice of a narrator declares:

You don’t change the world by simply looking at it. You change it through the way you choose to live in it.

Think about that. We are not puppets on a string. We are human beings—each one of us unique, inner-motivated and able to affect the future if we put a thoughtful mind to it. That should give us all hope that we can make a positive difference, maybe even a huge one.

Remember this from Robert Brault: “What does hope get you? It gets you a hopeful life—and what better thing might you have had in mind?”

Hope is a potent stimulant. Never, ever, let it slip away. No matter what.

(Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta, Georgia.)