Is Hope Ever Enough?

"May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears."  - Nelson Mandela

For several years, I've been using a Passion Planner to organize my days. The very first pages leave space to plan for your future self: 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, and - for the brave - a lifetime. Yikes! This page stops me in my tracks EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I've tried to work at it from the "lifetime" section; I've tried to work on it from the three-month section. It doesn't seem to matter where I begin, it's always a struggle. Planning like this shouldn't be such a challenge. 

When I retired, I thought my planner days were over, but I found I liked having a planner even more than I did when I worked. Crazy, right?!! When my first post-work planner arrived I stared at the Passion Roadmap. What did I hope for my future self? 

Perhaps that was the problem: HOPE. It wasn't that I didn't have any, it's just that I've always found hope to be a bit elusive. You can't just hope your way into the next chapter of your life. We've all found ourselves in a place where we reach toward hope. We hope for better weather, a change of luck, or a good outcome to a situation. Hope, while beautiful, seems best in places where we have little control. 

What if, however, hope is about choices? 

For 2022, I chose the word "RIPPLE" to be my guide for the year. As I began this new chapter, I hoped to make decisions that rippled into the world. I pictured myself standing at the edge of the water trying to skip stones out as far as they would go. I wanted to create that kind of ripple in my life. I wanted to take steps that would reach toward tomorrow. Interestingly, I found that I couldn't really do this until I found the right rocks. Instead of focusing on ripples in the last year, I have found myself searching for the rocks in my life.

In our in-process lives, knowing our rocks empowers us to make stronger choices. When Mandela's quote found its way into my world, hope suddenly made a bit more sense. Hope is best served by action. Without action, hope is nothing more than a wish. Yet, hope strives to be more than that. What are the yeses we want to take up? What do we want to leave behind? What will we prioritize? With intentional choices, hope can walk us into new chapters. 

My 2023 Passion Planner sits on the table beside me. Maybe in the upcoming year, I'll be able to finally fill out that roadmap with my hopes for the future.