Hope

The dictionary definition of HOPE is "a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen" or "a feeling of trust." In the bible, hope is commonly used to mean a wish—its strength is the strength of a person's desire. The website psychologytoday.com says "hope is important because it allows people to approach problems with a mindset and strategy-set suitable to success, thereby increasing the chances they will actually accomplish their goals."

Those who have been with me for a long time have likely heard me say, "I want to stand on investment pillars that do not include the words HOLD and HOPE." That remains very true today…the hope I am referring to in this column is about life rather than investing.

The last seven months have been difficult for all of us. Everyone has suffered. Everyone longs for things to get "back to normal." One of my favorite quotes that I have learned during this time is, "Normal is just a setting on the dryer." There is no normal.

Nevertheless, it is important to have hope…hope that our future lives will be very different from the isolation so many feel today…hope that we can experience being part of in-person gatherings with family and/or friends and being part of communities that have become extremely important to us. Having hope allows us to visualize a path to the realization of our dreams and desires and cope with the frustrations we may experience on our journey.

I read an article recently that gave me hope and I wanted to pass it along. My favorite line from the article: "And let's not forget: Prognostications are an irresistible exercise for many journalists, futurists, and intellectuals, but they're usually wrong." As Shawshank Redemption's Andy Dufresne said to Red, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." My mother always says, "This too shall pass." So far in my life she has never been wrong with this prediction!

Covid-19 Won't Change Us Forever

-Gary Weiss, October 2020