Someone recently said to me “what hope is there out there?” I know hope is a personal thing built on one’s own history and values, but hope is also an important piece of our personality. Let’s define hope as a “strong and confident expectation.”

But the challenge is to put hope in its special compartment in our lives. We must be careful to never abandon hope, even when there’s no guarantee. Don’t you think our Founding Fathers had high hope without any guarantee of success?

Is hope a part of your everyday life and are there times when hope is fleeting or a struggle? My friend commented that he feels our hope is being provided for us by outside sources and conditions and leaves little room for our individual brand of hope. Do you feel your hope is being sidetracked by other things like laws, rules, regulations, social engineering and political correctness?

In our governance today, we find hope is used quite differently than historically. Hope used to include trust, freedom, availability for all and unrestricted choices. But today we have fewer freedoms and vastly fewer choices.

We frequently have government on both sides of the same issue offering only a modicum of hope for a workable solution. Hoping that government is the answer to making our lives better and providing “strong and confident expectations” has been a hopeless dead end for years.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: “One should be able to see things as hopeless and yet be determined to make them different.” Where’s America’s determination? Think Brexit?

My curious friend said “I read somewhere that hopelessness is the harbinger of hope and the best path to action.” What do you think?

Isn’t it hope that moves our imagination to believe things can be made better?