Читать книгу The Woman's Book of Hope - Eileen Campbell - Страница 16

When we follow our dreams, we're choosing hope over fear. Instead of feeling as though we're staring into an abyss and everything is hopelessly impossible, we dare to believe that things can be better. Our current circumstances can change because we choose to change. We can become commensurate with what life offers us now, seeing the possibilities that are there, and envisioning a future that is more alive and meaningful. Mark Nepo, a poet-author of great insight and understanding, wrote: “Our job is to nourish the spark of life we each carry inside us.” Our unique destiny is to live a life that is meaningful and therefore makes us happy.

Victor Frankl, the famous Viennese psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust and wrote about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp in his best-selling book, Man's Search for Meaning, concluded that it was “meaning” that made the difference between those who lived and those who died:

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Our unique purpose is to find meaning, to understand the value of suffering, and to feel that we are responsible to something greater than ourselves. It is finding this satisfying life purpose that makes us happy rather than pursuing happiness itself. It is the pursuit of meaning that is paramount, which means devoting our lives to giving rather than taking. When we embrace our unique destiny and learn to serve, we exude energy and joy and so become a beacon of hope for others.

Harriet Tubman, a great icon of American freedom, was certainly a beacon of hope for others. Born a slave, she was frequently beaten and suffered a severe head wound that caused her health problems throughout her life. Her faith in God, however, was unshakeable.

In 1849, with hope in her heart and an image of a better life for herself, she had the courage to make a bid for freedom. Not content with that alone, she returned to rescue her family, gradually bringing them all to safety. With an even greater sense of purpose, she then guided dozens of slaves to freedom, traveling at night and on foot—helped by a network of activists—and avoiding the slave catchers. Her trust that God would keep her and those she was helping safe proved valid, for none of them was ever caught. She went on to rescue more than 750 slaves during the American Civil War.

In her later years, Harriet Tubman worked to promote the cause of women's suffrage. She died in 1913 at age ninety, and has inspired generations of black Americans struggling for equality and civil rights.

Her words remind us how important it is to create our meaningful vision of the future:

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.

Always remember, you have within you the

strength, the patience, and the passion to reach

for the stars to change the world.

I choose to change.

I nourish the spark of life I carry inside myself.

I have everything I need to change my world.