Keep hope alive

Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo

Against all hope, there is still hope. Your spirit is so strong that it can endure everything, withstand anything so long as you keep hope alive.

It is when things grow worse that you must not quit. It is when the lights go off that you must not sleep. It is when it grows dark that you must sharpen your vision and not quit. Stars shine brightly in darkness. It is when it is darkest that even the smallest of stars can be seen holding their place. Let your light keep shining and hope bubbling. Keep hope alive and you will live longer. When you lose hope what are you left with? The way you think affects the way you see, the strategy you pursue and the things that you do.

Hope sees through

Viktor Frankl, a Jewish doctor, was arrested by the Germans during World War II and had to languish and endure life for years in the concentration camps with their deplorable conditions. He was stripped of everything he owned and life became almost meaningless.

For him, however, he realised that his last ultimate freedom could not be taken away by anyone. It is the freedom within. The freedom to choose your thoughts, what things mean to you and to embrace an undying hope. Frankl after his release realised that his experiences could be of value to many other people. He distilled his experiences into a book that is now popular: “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

In the book Frankl wrote powerfully on the importance of maintaining hope, against all odds and shared some observations that we can still relate with today.

Viktor Frankl, told a tragic story of a fellow prisoner who regrettably in those dark years lost his most precious possession: hope! What looks like an eternal sentence will change. What looks like a brick wall can be turned into a door. Do not lose hope.

Losing or keeping hope has nothing to do with your station in life. It has something to do with you as a person and how you decide to process information, and what you chose to focus on. Dump your obsession with death. You are more useful alive than dead. There is a future and you are able to rewrite the story of your life. You do not drown by falling in water. It is when you decide not to swim and lose hope that you seal your fate. Keep hope alive.

Frankl talks of a well-known composer and librettist (an author of words to be set to music in a classical music opera or operetta) who approached him, and confiding in him, said: “Doctor, I have had a strange dream. A voice told me that I could wish for something, that I should only say what I wanted to know, and all my questions would be answered. What do you think I asked? That I would like to know when the war would be over for me. You know what I mean, Doctor — for me! I wanted to know when we, when our camp, would be liberated and our sufferings come to an end.”

Such was the man’s dream. When you go through a rough road, it looks as though there will never be an open highway to drive on. When you sleep rough, you wonder if a comfortable fresh bed will ever wait for you daily. Do not lose hope for yourself, family, organisation, business or community. Dreams have a way of affecting our belief systems, if we let them. Stand on solid ground and not on superstition. Remain grounded in hope and in the faith in which you are anchored.

Frankl was curious and asked: “What did your dream voice answer then?”

Cautiously, avoiding any spying ear, the man still brimming with hope whispered: “March 13.”

So he set his mark and believed his dream and his voice to be true. Stop waiting for a silver bullet and the one event that you hope will cure all your ills. The silver bullet is not a person, event or occurrence. Your hope is the silver bullet that will help you glide through any challenge and walk through any swamp.

Frankly narrates that when the man told him about his dream he was in good form, at least by war standards and he was still full of hope. However, as the promised day drew nearer, the news he heard were of little comfort to him. The war was still raging on and more prisoners were still coming.

The news that reached their camp made it appear unlikely that they would taste any freedom on the promised day. His hope was shredded to pieces.

Without hope, he could no longer see beyond his nose and the horizon was too far. Without a living hope, a future expectation and a reason to wait for tomorrow he was now a lost man and captured soul. He could not see any sense in life or any purpose of living. Without hope he was a dead man walking; not for long anyway.

On March 29, a fortnight after his dream-promised date of freedom, the man suddenly became ill. The next day, on March 30 he became delirious and lost consciousness. On March 31, he was dead.

To all outward appearances, he had died of a high fever. However, all who know about the intimate connection between the state of mind and the state of the person and how that affects the state of immunity of the body will understand that the sudden loss of hope can have a deadly effect. Once you have lost hope and the future seems to have evaporated, the present loses its meaning and everything loses sense.

Hold on to your hope because there is a future. Pick up your hope because what you are going through is not what you are going to. It is when you are at your lowest that you have to set your biggest goals. It is when things look tough that you must set for yourself some tough goals.

It is when it looks like there is no way that you must find a way to plan for bigger things. It is when times are most turbulent that you must invest in developing your long term strategy. Turbulent times are not the times to stop planning. Deep plans for the future keep the heart of hope warm.

Clench on the straws of hope. Write out your vision board. Populate your strategy template. Discuss your plans for an exciting future. Even if you cannot see the whole staircase, be content to at least climb one step. It is what you see in your head that is more important than what you see in front of you. Trying times are not the times to stop trying. Brace your mind for action and do not stop believing in a better future. Nothing stays the same. No winter lasts forever. No shame endures forever. Change does come and hope will never make you ashamed.

Recharge your batteries

If you are a driver you know that winter and weak batteries are not friends. So it is with hope. Going through a challenging patch is like trying to start a car in winter with a weak battery. Even if you lose everything right up to the clothes on your back, do not lose hope and stop believing in greatness. Recharge your batteries and keep the flame of hope within.

Any attempt to restore a person’s inner strength starts with first succeeding in showing the person some future worthy goal. To keep hope alive dump all cynicism. Stop believing that you are cursed and you were bewitched. Your victory is in the way you think. Tough times are not times to think like a victim. Plan deep into the future, paint your vision large and bold. Reach for something exciting enough for you to want to be alive for a few more years.

Do not die while you are living. Embrace your own great expectations and they will feed your hope. When you have no goal to get you out of bed in the morning life becomes a bare and boring existence. Living life in routine mode is a terribly way to live your life and waste your exist. To restore hope look beyond yourself and your own needs. Find a way to be useful to others. When you serve you re-ignite your hope.

Bleak or blank

When you stare into the future what do you see? What you see does not depend on some fate or fantasy. What you see depends on the eyes that are looking. The future is not bleak, how could it be? It is exciting and worth actively waiting for. The future is a blank screen for you to write and paint on. Go ahead and paint your dreams on the canvas of the future. The past is gone, the present is going and the future is where you are going. In your mind pre-play your greatness. Start positioning yourself for the opportunities you desire.

You do not have any time to waste. The future must not find you unprepared, unimaginative and unengaged. The future is coming and it will surely come. Hope whispers that the future must not find you despondent, clueless and careless. The future loves the prepared. Whatever you are preparing for is also preparing to meet and greet you openly. Do not give up then. Hold on to the torch of hope.

Giving up does not benefit anyone. Bitterness does not make you a better person. Despondency just disposes you of the things that matter. Do not give up, keep hope alive. Whatever season you are going through, do not give up. Hope is your soul’s anchor. Hope is that little small voice that says, I can wake up tomorrow and fight . . . at least for one more day. Keep that flame of hope alive and fan it daily.

Committed to your greatness.

Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and executive coach. He is a cutting strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and Twitter: @MiltonKamwendo or WhatsApp at: 0772422634. His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com