IS HOPE ENOUGH?

  I hear people say all the time;
 "We hope for the best."
 "All we can do is hope."
 "There is nothing we can do but hope and pray."

 What then is your definition of Hope?

 ‘To have a wish to get or do something or for something to happen or be true, especially something that seems possible or likely.’   
      
 ‘A feeling that something desirable is likely to happen’.   
   
The above definitions are according to the Encarta dictionary.

  Should you keep waiting for a wish to get or
do something? Or wish for something to happen or be true? Or keep waiting for a feeling?
  I see people sit down and say they have hope for the future. They have a feeling that things will work out. That hope is synonymous with faith. When you have faith, you can move mountains. When there is hope, there is life. Didn’t your bible tell you ‘heaven helps those who help themselves?’ You see it’s not just enough to sit down and hope.

  Only dreamers sit down and hope. You might not understand but let me paint a clearer picture for you. In Nigeria, everyone complains that things are bad, there is corruption everywhere and our leaders loot our money. If you ask any Nigerian what they feel they can do to change things you’d hear them say;

"What can I do but hope things will change."
"We can only hope for the best for our country."
"We hope our leaders will change for the better"
"Who I be? Na to dey pray I fit do."
"We hope the future will be great for Nigeria and all Nigerians."

  I have been hearing all these since I was a little girl. Have things gotten better or worse now? Even our supposed leaders are hoping things will change. Why where they put in that position in the first place. Haven’t you heard?
"We hope to have stable power supply in the year ...."
  I ask again, have things gotten better or worse now? You take a look around you, read up on the news and answer that question yourself.

  Let me give you another picture. It was the slave trade era. The 1780’s wasn’t pretty for blacks. They had been singing in the farms for years and hoping something or someone would come and free them from slavery, they were nothing but livestock to be killed, bred, traded and used as wanted. They got tired of hoping and some of them plus some quakers such as; Harriet Tubman, Henry Highland Garnet, Frederick Douglass, Charles Torrey, Levi Coffee and others under the Underground Railroad smuggled blacks out of the US to freedom. Harriet Beecher Stowe joined the struggle in her own way by publishing ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. 

  Slave trade got abolished but still Blacks and whites couldn’t mingle. Yes, slave trade had been abolished but still blacks were looked upon as animals and not human beings. They had to stand for a white man to sit in a bus. They couldn’t go into certain places. They couldn’t be given certain jobs. Even some schools were off limits to the blacks. Racial discrimination was at its height and it wasn’t concealed.  
  Another movement started, Rosa Parks a leading member of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said no to standing up for a white in a bus. Edgar D.Nixon approaches Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Improvement Association was formed to handle the bus boycott. It grew from there and it’s not my plan to give a history lesson but today, thanks to the efforts, actions and not just hopes of these courageous men and women, we had a black man as the president of the United States. That’s a big feat and I’m sure they were dancing, singing and jumping hoops in their graves and saying ‘We did it!’

   Hope is good and we all need it but Hope without action is useless. Hope is being optimistic but what are you being optimistic about if you don’t move. If you lie on your couch and hope someone will see how talented you are, what have you done to show it? You hope and dream things will change for you; what have you done to achieve that dream? Hope should be nothing but a backup, a wish that your plans and steps taken to achieve your desires work. 
 ‘Hope is being optimistic about an action taken.’

 That’s my definition of hope. You see, hope is not enough. You can’t sit down and do nothing and hope you become successful. You can’t fold your arms and hope Nigeria will get better and be great. You have to unfold your arms and use them and then hope. Don’t just be hopeful for nothing done. Do and then hope. I am tired of just hoping, aren’t you? 
The Bible even said it that "faith without work is dead"
I'm not saying do illegal things and all that but at least try, do something as you hope. In the end, let it be that you worked while having faith and hoping. You did your part.

Thanks for reading my thoughts. What are yours?