I broke up with Hope a long time ago. Some of it was politically motivated. Coming from a liberal family, as our country moved steadily to the right, I felt my belief that we could always solve our problem through government slowly eroding like water on stone; drip, drip, dripping until my Grand Canyon of political despair was formed. I wanted to believe this: “We are Americans! We can manifest whatever future we want. We landed on the Moon, right?” I firmly believed Steve Jobs when he said, “the future belongs to those who make it.”
First and foremost, I am an American. We are a culture of Hope. The American Dream lures us into the promise that, with enough backbone, we can be rich and famous. That anybody can be President. Okay, well that one is turning out to be true.
What our American version of hope does not supply is the money to accomplish our wildest dreams. That is the information that is not revealed in most historical scenarios of success in America.
Conventional wisdom of our country’s culture says, “The way to success is to work hard. All will be given to you if only you keep at it.” Meanwhile, your wage is not keeping up with rising costs because all the money is skimmed off the top. You cannot afford to buy a house because Air BnB has tripled the value of your rent and escalated the costs of buying in your neighborhood.
I invite you to re-look at the American Dream and how the myth was made. The West was settled in part by robber-barons, the 1% of their time, who invested in railroads and secured their empires by inviting the masses to follow them, on their own dime. Set up the opportunity to sell something and they will come. You can read that as a rephrasing of the Steve Jobs quote, which by the way, came from an advertisement.
The single cultural quality we share as Americans is hope. Hope that we will make it. Hope that our kids will make it better. Hope that if we vote it will all be good.
Michelle Obama is wrong. It’s not that we don’t have hope now. It’s that hope is the wrong verb and definitely not the noun of today. We have to leave the current definition of hope. We have to leave the Merriam-Webster limitation of understanding hope as, “ cherishing a desire with anticipation” and return to the archaic use of the word as, “trust.”
How do we do this? You know, you really know, what this looks like to you. It lives inside you like a whisper in your gut. Find your way to it. Sit daily, comfortably and quietly, for even five short minutes and it will whisper to you. The more you listen to it and practice with it, the louder it will speak.
How do we know when to believe our smallest internal whispers? When, first all, no one is harmed. If our actions cause pain and suffering, there is something arising that is tainted by our own self-reflecting motives. When we unhook from the many layers within our understanding that we need to get something by taking from others, we open to giving ourselves in the world with a clearer certainty of delivering our gifts.
You must deliver your gifts to the world. Anything less is the human arrogance of playing small. Human arrogance has two sides. One side is the shadow side, the side that is fearful and meek, “How can I make a difference? I’m just one person?” The other is the hopeful, in the current use of the word, and overinflated, “Why shouldn't I be President? I’m fantastic.”
Move away from hope and into certainty. Hope is a mother f*cker. It will disappoint you every time. Certainty requires action. Hope lulls us into exhausted complacency. Yes, there is much to do, too much to do, in this life. Certainty is a springboard of life force, propelling you into all that we can do and be in our one precious life, to quote Mary Oliver. Why disappoint yourself, your family, your friends, the world? Give yourself the gift you need to move with what the Buddhists call, “right action.”
Leave the hope train and get on the certainty bandwagon. We can no longer afford to hope this world will turn out okay. We have to be certain and work to make that certainty comes alive.
Start with yourself, work within your family, offer your gifts and encourage each person you meet to offer theirs. You won’t be disappointed. When you know what your gift is and are no longer hoping to find it, your “presence will automatically liberate others”, as Marianne Williamson so famously stated.
These times require our certainty so that we can stop worrying about the future and do the work that is required of us now.
