Hope Got Me Here

Me a graduate student?  It was so farfetched that I didn’t dream it.  But here I sit on the window seat of my student accommodations drinking my morning coffee and listening to the Birds in Salaya, Thailand the home of Mahidol University where I will be attending the graduate program in Human rights.

What I think about how I got here one word comes to mind “HOPE.”

I have struggled with hope most of my life.  Hope for a better life every day, and hope for a better world for all of us.

Wikipedia says that hope is an optimistic attitude of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes related to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large.

After a google search I started thinking what is the difference between hope and faith because the google search on hope brings up all kinds of religious and faith quotes.

This difference between faith and hope is based on your acceptance of the outcome that you are having hope on or faith in.   Faith is accepting the outcome as the best even if it’s not the outcome you wanted; Hope is an action predicated on uncertainty with optimistic thoughts on the outcome.

One of my favorite quotes was by Taylor Swift “To me, “FEARLESS” is not the absence of fear. It’s not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death…  It’s FEARLESS to have faith that someday things will change.”   The faith here for me is Hope.  My sister has called me fearless many times but I do have fear and I think I overcome that fear with hope. I am not a religious person and have a lot more hope than faith. 

When I think about this next journey of my life I am filled with hope.  Hope that there are so many people making this world a better place for everyone.  I would like to share four Personal stories of hope with you that happened on this journey called life.

I opened house to foster kids, teenage girls.  Shortly after a girl was placed in my home I started knitting a Christmas stocking for them with their name on it.  I didn’t realize at the time but that act of knitting gave hope to the girl that just arrived and to everyone in the household that that girl would be with us and a part of our family when the Christmas holiday came. 

Before I left for the Peace Corps I was nervous.  But I was consoled by my sister and my daughter when they each wrote letters to me as goodbye presents.  My sister, Zoe, gave me so much hope in her goodbye letter and my daughter, Lani, confirmed this in her letter to me writing, “I am so proud of you! You have grown and changed so much during my life time and I am very lucky to have you for my mother.”  Getting a vote of confidence like this from my daughter means the world to me.  In Mali every time I read these it gave me hope in the work I was doing and I got teary eyed.

In Mali my friend Koro always was hopeful.  Her and her husband live in a space that in 10X15 divided into two rooms, they have not running water, no electricity, and they struggled and work hard for their daily needs and have very few daily wants.  Koro always had a uplifting thing to say to me as she did her laundry by hand in a plastic tub just outside her front door.  She always greeted her neighbors made jokes and laughed.  She taught me hope has nothing to do with money, she taught me hope is about community, hope is about caring and when you care about others that caring comes back to you and fills you with hope.

The other day I was in the check-out line at Costco there was a Muslim woman in front of me, she had forgotten money and credit card.  As she walked away with her head down and Costco employees started rolling her cart away to put the food back the woman behind me asked the cashier how much was the bill and then offered to pay for it.  The woman ran after the woman walking away, caught up with her and after a short conversation they both started walking back, the cashier stopped the person rolling the cart away.  I took a deep breath and said out loud “I am start going to crying.”  I gave the women who was paying a big hug and told the other woman to have a good day.

I held my tears back until I got outside and put on my sun glasses, I cried all the way to my car and then some.  I wasn’t sad I was so full of hope in that moment.  It’s moments like this that make me think we can get over this national trend that has swept our country.

My community and friends give me hope daily.  That hope spreads to every part of my life, in making me a better person, it encouraged me to apply to graduate school.  You all have been my cheer leaders for the past years filling my life with hope and I would like to thank you.

Think about hope in your life, ask yourself where do you get hope how do you spread that hope in your life, in your community and in the world.  Hope makes such a big difference in changing things for the better.