by Karen Yvonne Hamilton, 2026
Forward we go into having more HOPE this year…Happy New Year!
This year, I choose hope. While we are currently surrounded with chaos, pessimism and cynicism in our world, we have the choice to choose hope. I am always telling people who are feeling hopeless that bad times will always come around, but so will good times. You just have to push through the bad time, move forward constantly so that you can get to the good time again. It always comes.
I have spent the last five years in the pit (the place I call the bad). I lost the foundations of my world in 2021-2023, the hands that were my rocks. I was cast adrift and lost without them. Grief does that to a person, casts them adrift into the unknown. I had no hope that I would ever find my place in the world again.
I am by no means a Pollyanna. I do not believe in faking it till you make it or in slathering people with niceness and pleasantries. I am a realist, but I refuse to live in the pit any longer, and I refuse to pretend that the world, that this life, is all roses and sunshine. It is most certainly not any of that, at least not 24-7.
FROM AN ARTICLE in The Atlantic today: “While optimism is the belief that the future will be better, hope is the belief “that we have the power to make it so,”
To survive this life, you must recognize that there is yin and yang, polar opposites, bad and good. There is balance. And you get to decide which side you will lean more towards. Ignoring the bad things happening in the world will not make them go away, and when you do that, you are not only negating other’s experiences, you are creating an imbalance in your own self.
So, we keep moving forward, paying attention and acknowledging the good and the bad, trying to do something about the bad when we observe it. We feed the hungry, find shelter for the homeless, and offer kind words to those in need. We help those deep in the pit by holding out our hands and offering them a chance to rise again. Not everyone will take the offer because they are too mired in the bad place, but by offering, we hopefully are able to show them that there is good in the world, and maybe, just maybe, that will be a help to them.
During my bad times in the pit, I had many hands reaching out to hold me up and I took those hands. I am forever grateful to those who reached out to me. It has taken me a long time to crawl out of that pit, but I did it one inch at a time, focused always on the word FORWARD. Forward motion was my only hope then, and now.
My wish for you this new year is that you keep moving forward, even when you don’t want to. One inch at a time. Know that the bad will one day become good again.
Other Rivers 
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