How to Find Hope in a Hopeless Situation by Tony Ogunlowo

How to Find Hope in a Hopeless Situation

An article
By

Tony Ogunlowo

New Year, new wahala!
Everywhere you look its doom and gloom: politicians come and go promising
Heaven and Earth but fail to deliver leaving the average person on the street still
hungry as ever, despondent and doubtful about things will ever get better in their
lifetimes.

We are all, currently, living in difficult times: the cost of living has skyrocketed and
there is uncertainty everywhere you look. The Hope we all believed in is fast
dwindling into nothingness.
So, we carry on, toiling on, hoping for a miracle, hoping for a change eventhough,
deep down, we know it may never come.
“As long as belle full and we have a place to call home…”, said a wise old man I
once bumped into,”…everything else go sort out”. And in sorting things out he wasn’t
referring to the ‘dream merchant’ pastors, all-promising Babalawo or sugar tongued
politicians rescuing us but the indomitable spirit of the Human Being. When properly
programmed any human being can survive whatever Life throws at them, survive
and live.
Hope is the keyword here. And while Hope, itself, is not a strategy it can be a
powerful ally in the absence of anything else – it gives you something to go on with.
Without a doubt you need to have Faith first developing Hope as you go along, one
supports the other.(-N.B – I tend to use the words ‘Faith’ and ‘Hope’ interchangeably,
perhaps I’m wrong).Hope, itself, is the same dream your Pastor sells to you, as
Faith, under the guise of religion.
But the question of how long you can keep your hopes up before you lose it remains.
And this brings us to positivity.

It is difficult trying to remain hopeful when there seems to be no sign of change ever
occurring so now comes the time to empower yourself with positivity: you’ll get
nowhere in Life by being negative. Even if you are surrounded by negativity you
must be able to see that pin-prick of light at the end of the tunnel. If you can’t its
game over: hope, or faith, or vice versa, and maintaining a positive attitude go hand
in hand. This is where a lot of people get it wrong. Faced with their current
predicament, where things are not going according to plan, it’ll be difficult for them to
maintain hope, faith and a positive mental attitude. Stay away from negativity as
much as possible and there’s a lot of it in the world today especially on SM.
And this is where patience enters the game. We all know Rome wasn’t built in a day
so why do we expect all our problems to miraculously disappear overnight? Logically
speaking that’s an impossibility: only an act of God can do such. I’m not going to get
all Biblical here and start quoting texts from the sacred book primarily because I’m
rubbish at that kind of stuff! But I will say that tough times don’t last but tough people
do! (- which is the title of an 80s bestselling book) and no condition is permanent. But
I will say be grateful for what you’ve got and use that as a springboard.
Next, we need to address our expectations: set them too high and you’ll crash, set
them too low and you’ll sink faster than the Titanic. It’s about finding the right point to
achieve balance and then use that as a stepping stone to climb higher. Set
realistically archivable targets and not outlandish ones. We already have the basics:
at least a meal a day (- hopefully!), a roof above our heads (- hopefully!) and fresh air
to breathe (- obviously!). These are the basics required to keep Body and Soul
working.
So once the Body and Soul is taken care of riding out the storm is feasible, Hope is
still in the background, not forgotten, and so also will be the dream. For now, you’ve
taken a sabbatical from it all. Circumstances have deemed that that path can’t be
followed for now but can be in the future, not abandoned. You need to keep on
going, keep the show on the road.
So, you’ve changed your mindset from ‘living’ to ‘surviving’ – not planned and not
pleasant and most people are doing this now anyway. It’s to get by with the belief
things will change for the better.

And what if it doesn’t? How do you maintain the charade of believing things will get
better?
You just do. Hope and Faith are two words I always use interchangeably. Hope itself
is just a 4-letter word that can spell the difference between what can happen and
what didn’t happen and Faith in believing it will happen. In Life we keep on going.
We don’t slow down. We don’t go backwards. We don’t stop for anything. We keep
on going hoping things will change for the best. This is what has kept the human
race going all these years – the belief there is ‘better’ ahead.
Find or found a support group: get together with like minded people and work
towards a common goal. There are lots of support and mentoring groups out there,
some run by religious organisations, aimed at getting people out of the doldrums of
life. Two heads are better than one and there’s bound to be somebody out there who
believes in you and will mentor you. Despite the fact I like to fly solo even I have
benefitted from mentoring and brainstorming: it makes the job easier.
And if you want to go down the spiritual way, fine. Empower yourself with prayer and
meditation and leave it to the Will of God to pull you through. WARNING: It takes a
strong man or woman to submit themselves fully to the will of God. Jesus Christ was
sent into the wilderness for 40 nights and 40 days to prepare him for Ministry – no
food, no water…nada! For you it might take longer. Remember the Israelites were in
the desert for 40 years before they reached the promised land.
At this point its good to incorporate a lot of positive thinking or energy into your way
of life: surround or drown yourself with positivity! Believe its going to get better and it
will – eventually. Get rid of all the negativity, and naysayers, and ride on. WARNING:
Be careful not to become too positive to the point you start to think sunshine comes
out of your backside and you become to big for your boots. This is toxic positivity and
be detrimental to your health. Overconfidence is also a false sense of positive
empowerment and it can go to your head and before you know it, it can pull you
down, all the way.
Life is an adventure and you’ll never really know what’s around the corner but if you
mentally discipline yourself to expect the unexpected you’ll be able to deal with
whatever comes your way. Times are hard but if you’re in the right frame of mind you
can ride the storm out and see that light at the end of the tunnel.

This, I believe, is the best way to see hope in a hopeless situation and carry on. The
world is not going to get any easier to live in, its going to get harder, and its only
going to be those who mentally (- and spiritually) discipline themselves that will be
able to see it through.
Follow me on Twitter: @Archangel641 or visit http://www.archangel641.blogspot.co.uk