As world turmoil flares up, so also does positive resolve and hope; they are the natural life-seeking-and-preserving response. These qualities will stay strong, enabling goodness and humanity to prevail.

Increasingly, resolve and hope is all people have in a fight for survival. Good thing they are undeniable and powerful. Gone for the time being is the chance to win more fully, like predictable safety or better quality of life.

There is a bright side in America, because the common masses can survive on resolve and hope. Americans persevere and can again stand up to the test.

Americans might well pull it off, this meager win of surviving. Here’s why:

• In America, some democratic freedoms still exist;
• we are still a bit of a melting pot of the world;
• and we want so much to survive.

We have our immediate selfish reasons, but the world also needs us to find our firm determination and high hopes. American can be a much-needed spark for the world. So, we will not give up. We the people will shine again.

Resolve Morphs into Action

Resolve implies decisions that trigger actions, and in turn, improvement. Sure, we can make a wrong decision, poorly execute the action, or change our minds about what constitutes improvement. In all such variations, resolve rises to try again.

Jimmy “Doc” Lee was a small-town educator who persistently promoted resolve back in the 1970s. He prompted Pekin Community High School students to get started and fight hard. This he did using a simple but powerful pair of mantras: when the going gets tough the tough get going; and, you gotta wanna.

Hope is Nobody’s Weaker Sister

Everybody has hope. So, it is silly to deny or discount it. It is far better to embrace it and recognize its value. You might be able to skip it and jump straight to resolve-driven action, but a vast many can’t. Hope is the ultimate big tent; everybody in.

Hope is very specific and focused, originating at the personal level, usually weighing in on a particular issue. It is more acutely and profoundly important in the context of survival. Its power becomes undeniable and has added dynamics when masses of people are like-minded, hoping to live in peace, eat, and not be extinguished.

Just imagine the hope that a hot meal provides hurricane survivors, right when they need it most. Mercy Chefs is delivering hope today in Florida.

Beware: Challenges to One’s Own Power

The heat of the moment can undercut your personal powers. Stress and threats can cause one to lose track of where you are going, or even where you are with your efforts. Anyone can end up being that proverbial tight drum.

Challenges to one’s power can take many forms. For instance, I am a commoner, one who channels through my writing. Writing helps me garner my own resolve and hope, and lets me impart it to others. But the social-political climate of the day does trip me up, if I let it.

My capstone piece, about which I fervently care, will be a narrative memoire on the travails of crime and justice, encouragement and insights for those that might need or want to know. Within my writing group, I lurched into a tirade on racism that took me off track. Whatever validity there is in the words was out of context. The piece detracted from my intent to bolster and strengthen needy folks. I didn’t see it coming. Thankfully, my writing group woke me up.

Positive resolve and hope are the opposite of denial and suppression

Note: surviving and winning does require good intent and truth. Lately we are made to stare long at the glaring fallibility of man. Hope for our leaders.