Hope and Potential

HOPE & POTENTIAL are two valuable tools worth adding to your journey kit.

The following is a modified excerpt from "Love’s Pursuit: Journey to Wellness" by Wellview Mental Health Specialist, Dammeon Marshall.

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HOPE & POTENTIAL are two valuable tools worth adding to your journey kit. They will prove invaluable during the storms. Potential stirs up the genius within, while hope enables you to endure suffering without complaining as you strive for greatness.

“Potential looks for greatness while hope is patiently working to develop the greatness you found.”

To be true, suffering in hope is no easy task nor is patiently waiting for the incubation of the life to which you look forward. Life storms are often unforeseen and can have you traveling down an unpredictable arduous path. At this point, it begins to appear as if you are abandoned and have lost your achievements. When the gravity of storms is immense and its frequency high, one seems to find no safe haven in which to anchor. You feel hopeless and abandoned due to a developing negative perception of yourself, especially when you recall so-called golden opportunities that slipped through your fingertips. How many opportunities have you felt that you flushed down the toilet?

Let me let you in on a secret: when you begin to experience feelings of this sort and magnitude, it is an indication you are worthy and capable of a better life and a change from the status quo. It is for you to long for more, to seek more. What is the “more” you seek? The “more” here symbolizes potential expansion. Your soul is pursuing deeper love, higher levels of consciousness, and spiritual awakening.

In order to know the “more” you seek, first, you must identify the inner conflict that requires managing. Is it related to sex, morals, ego, values, self-image, or love? Or is it “meta” in nature? There are more types of conflicts, and these inner conflicts must be identified and dealt with because they constitute clogs in the wheel of your journey. They hinder your progression in seeking for the “more.” This activity will help complete the inner work and assist you in trusting your decisions. This may also require taking a break or terminating a non-rewarding relationship, project, or career path that made you smile in the past but only now restricts your potential. (With most things we are passionate about, we become emotionally vested and give 150%). It will challenge you in ways unimaginable. It will make a difference in your life in times of storms, whether you will give in to the disheartening situation or remain steadfast.

But . . . you know, I like to say “but” with emphasis and a short pause whenever I am speaking. And when I write, I like to put a comma beside it like (,) but after the storms is a soiree; (,) but after the pain is a party. There is great intention behind that, however. This is because it is an independent clause in preparation for a breakthrough. It makes the difference between hope and anxiety, optimism and pessimism, success and failure, victory and defeat, and response and reaction.

Hope says, I did not expect the sickness, but I am recuperating. Anxiety says, I am recuperating, but I am still sick. “Comma or (,) but” means a change is happening or is about to happen. Something new is in the offing. Learn to use your buts and use them well. For me, the word sends chills traveling down from my head to my feet—a sign of the good change I anticipate in my journey through the midst of the storms.