Hope – ElPropósito5 min de lectura

Actions that multiply our achievements

At some point in life we all need, or will need, a push to get out of a tough spot. Sometimes that help seems to come from above, or we have no idea how or where it came from. What is certain is that when it arrives, it brings a pleasant sense of momentum, a fair breeze that calms any anxiety and gives us at least the peace and harmony we need. Today I am writing about hope, hope in a better future and a better tomorrow. It is a uniquely human quality that shapes us before, during and after we set an objective. Usually, when we long for something, such as getting out of a crisis, we immediately picture how good it would feel to be past it. So a key element is designing a plan to move forward. That plan grows out of the ability to picture a better future, and once we are clear about exactly what we want to achieve by a certain time, two big components come into play.

The first element in reaching an objective is to feel responsible, and to be responsible, for achieving it. Here I love the English word accountable. It goes beyond simply being responsible: it means truly understanding that both achieving and failing to achieve a result are on us. I believe much of the decline of a country, a company or a household begins when people stop being accountable for their own existence and think their problems are caused by someone else, or that the world’s problems belong to someone else. Along those lines I like to quote Jordan Peterson’s Rule 6: "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world." Accountability starts with what is ours, with the most basic things, from personal hygiene to making the bed we sleep in every day. Of course, many people may be involved in reaching our objectives, each responsible for one or more tasks. Yet the result depends on just one person, and that person, in practically every case, is us. That is why one principle I have lived by is "when in doubt, I am responsible."

The second element is more intangible, and it is what led me to write this post about hope. I could also call it faith that it will happen, that the objective will come about. Someone else might call it chance. I prefer to think of faith, hope and Providence. I like to imagine that if God is the owner of that second, supernatural component, He will arrive and find me working, doing what is in my hands to achieve what I want. Along those lines, another big problem I see constantly in my coaching practice is a lack of action toward an objective, for various reasons, chief among them a lack of commitment. The second is the hopelessness people can fall into. All of this becomes fertile ground for someone with a perverse or authoritarian view of the world to easily buy anyone’s will with handouts that only ease hunger. And it is a hunger that has less to do with a physiological need and more to do with pleasure, the false sense of well-being a gift brings when it numbs a lack of action.

Lack of action causes a great deal of anxiety, and when we are unclear about our own resources, we can fall into the temptation of believing someone else will fix our problems. There can be no hope without action. Put another way, when there is action, hope follows. The best example is the farmer who sows his crop hoping this season will go better than the last. Out in the fields we can see the miracle of nature and how those who work the land keep their focus on both the future and the present. On the present, because they know the work has to be done today: the water a plant needs at the right moment cannot wait until tomorrow, when it will be too late. On the future, because they are always thinking a good rain will come or that crop prices will beat what is on the table today. We are all farmers in this life. Some do it more tangibly because they work the land. Those who don’t still do it indirectly, because every day we are all sowing what we hope to harvest tomorrow. So, directly and indirectly, our minds focus on the present and the future, as if one eye were always ready to look at today, at the here and now, and the other were looking toward the future.

What stands out about this reflection is that hope in the future depends on the quality of our sowing. The better the sowing, the more hope we can have. So our main job must be to get better in the present, and for that we need to become a little more professional every day, act with virtue every day, cultivate high-quality relationships every day, steer our decisions toward our purpose every day, and give our best every day, always going the extra mile with everyone and in everything we do. Is there room for error? Of course. Life would not taste the way it does if our mistakes did not sometimes add a bit more salt or pepper than they should. The idea is to keep improving and perfecting the recipe, and the recipe only improves if every day we put a little more love into what we do. To give today’s sowing quality, real high quality, we need to sharpen our skills and abilities, become better human beings and polish our imperfections little by little, staying aware of them and taking action to correct them.

Finally, hope carries within it one of my favorite values: trust. The question is, trust in whom? In my case, my hope rests on my faith, and faith is what gives me trust in God as the great benefactor of all I can and cannot become, do and have.

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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