Hope can carry us through the tough times when we have them. –Stephen King, Rita Hayworth in Shawshank Redemption said it this way. "Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." There was a study done with rats in the 1950’s by Curt Richter, a professor at John Hopkins. The first group of rats were put in glass bowls of water. They swam for a few mins then gave up and drowned. The second group just before they would have given up and drowned were taken out of the water, held for a little while, let them recover and then put back in the water even though they only got picked up once, it made a big difference in their life expectancy. When he put them back in the water instead of minutes they swam for hours and hours.
So, what is the take away? Here is what I want to talk about. When you feel supported by others, when you feel like you have been rescued from time to time when you needed it, or if you believe the future will be a better place. These things will help you through difficult situations. They will provide hope.
There is this thing called “Vroom’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation.” You might be asking if I can give you the lay version. What this says is that people are motivated by 3 types of situations.
Hope is alive. It resides in the place where sadness, anguish and devastation bring the sentence of death. Hope looks forward. The future is what brings hope, for what is possible; the past is where we see the negative things that have happened to us. Hope builds and encourages.
This world needs hope! There is a bigger shortage of hope and love than of water or anything else that we need on this earth. According to the United Nations we are in the middle of a human crisis. We have many things happening that are “firsts” in the history of the world. We are so connected and the earth is so small now that we can get info around the world simultaneously. There are things like the global health crisis which have never before been seen at this scale. A global recession of record dimensions. This is stressing out the human family and the social fabric is being stretched so thin it is tearing. We need a new set of tools to overcome situations that have never before been seen. We need love and hope. We need to work together in solidarity to overcome this crisis. We need to see each other with love no matter the different backgrounds or beliefs that we have. We need to find hope in each other and in the future for us to overcome this crisis. We need each other. It is so very important that we find ways to connect with love and create hope.
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