Making Hope Long-Lasting

Today’s post is dedicated to a couple that is near and dear to me. Both parties have undergone several medical issues over the years. Now the male of the couple is dealing with especially difficult heart issues. All the best to you both.

Making hope long-lasting is an ongoing challenge for many of us. Sometimes, it can be fleeting (ephemeral), depending on how we feel — physically and emotionally. For those of us with major illnesses, it may be difficult to always be hopeful. But it is imperative that we try to be hopeful even if our situation is dire. And even if we have physical limitations.

According to Kirsten Weir, in a report for the American Psychology Association:

“Hope is associated with many positive outcomes, including greater happiness, better achievement, and even lowered risk of death. It’s a necessary ingredient for getting through tough times, of course, but also for meeting everyday goals. Everyone benefits from having hope — and psychologists’ research suggests almost anyone can be taught to be more hopeful.”

“‘Hope doesn’t relate to IQ or to income,’ says psychologist Shane Lopez, Ph.D., a senior scientist at Gallup and author of the book Making Hope Happen. ‘Hope is an equal opportunity resource.'”

“What precisely is hope? Most psychologists who study the feeling favor the definition developed by the late Charles R. Snyder, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Kansas and a pioneer of hope research. His model of hope has three components: goals, agency, and pathways. Put simply, agency is our ability to shape our lives — the belief that we can make things happen, and the motivation to reach a desired outcome. The pathways are how we get there — the routes and plans that allow us to achieve the goal, whether that’s adopting a child, finding a better job, surviving a hurricane or just losing a few pounds.”

lona Boniwell notes the following for Positive Psychology:

“Hope is a construct which closely relates to optimism, although the two are not identical. Rick Snyder, one of the leading specialists in hope, represents it as an ability to conceptualize goals, find pathways to these goals despite obstacles, and have the motivation to use those pathways. To put it more simply, we feel hope if we: a) know what we want, b) can think of a range of ways to get there, and c) start and keep on going.”

“It’s not hard to guess that being hopeful brings about many benefits. For example, we know that hope buffers against interfering, self-deprecatory thoughts and negative emotions, and is critical for psychological health. In the domain of physical health, we know that people who are hopeful focus more on the prevention of diseases (e.g., through exercising).”

Back to the Wisdom of Jim Valvano Regarding Hope

Last summer, we referred to the wisdom of Jim Valvano. In 1993, he presented a truly inspirational speech shortly before he passed away from pancreatic cancer. That speech is available at YouTube.

His most well-known quote that relates to hope is this: “Don’t Give Up . . . Don’t Ever Give Up!”®

The full text of Valvano’s speech is available at the V Foundation’s Web site. Here are some parts of the speech that especially resonate with me. And HOPEfully with you as well [the emphasis below is added by me]:

Time is very precious to me. I don’t know how much I have left, and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I will have said something that will be important to other people, too. But, I can’t help it. Now I’m fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how’s your day, and nothing is changed for me.

I’m a very emotional and passionate man. I can’t help it. That’s being the son of Rocco and Angelina Valvano. It comes with the territory. We hug, we kiss, we love.

When people say to me how do you get through life or each day, it’s the same thing. To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.

I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get your emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm,” to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality.

We need your help. I need your help. We need money for research. It may not save my life. It may save my children’s lives. It may save someone you love. And it’s very important. And ESPN has been so kind to support me in this endeavor and allow me to announce tonight, that with ESPN’s support, which means what? Their money and their dollars and they’re helping me—we are starting the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. And its motto is, “Don’t give up . . . don’t ever give up.”

I got one last thing, and I said it before. And I’m gonna say it again. Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever. I thank you, and God bless you all.