Put the Spring in Your Step
FORWARD: SOCIABILITY WAS AN ONLINE MAGAZINE DEDICATED TO “LIVING GENEROUSLY AND SERVING JOYFULLY.”
AN IDEA BORN DURING THE THROES OF COVID, SOCIABILITY CAME TO LIFE THROUGH MY FRIENDSHIP WITH TONY RUTIGLIANO. WITH TONY AS THE PUBLISHER AND ME AS EXECUTIVE EDITOR, WE LAUNCHED SOCIABILITY AS A DIFFERENT KIND OF ONLINE MAGAZINE. WE RECRUITED FRIENDS, FRIENDS OF FRIENDS, AND STRANGERS WHO BECAME FRIENDS TO WRITE STORIES ABOUT THEIR LIVES AND TO SERVE ON OUR BOARD. EVERYONE WAS A VOLUNTEER. IT WAS A MAGAZINE FULL OF WAYS THAT PEOPLE ARE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER. OUR CONTRIBUTORS AND I SHARED STORIES OF FRESH AIR AND DOGS, LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING AHEAD, LOVING PEOPLE JUST AS THEY ARE (INCLUDING YOURSELF), SHARING ONE’S TALENTS AND ENTHUSIASM WITH OTHERS, DADS SPENDING TIME WITH DAUGHTERS, MOMS SUPPORTING ONE ANOTHER, AND BAKING REALLY GOOD CAKE. FOR ME, THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH OUR CONTRIBUTORS WAS EXTRAORDINARY.
THE MAGAZINE EXISTED FROM NOVEMBER 2020 - MAY 2022. WE STILL SEE LITTLE GLIMMERS OF ITS IMPACT TODAY, WHICH SAYS TO US THAT SOCIABILITY LIVED A GOOD LIFE. THAT’S ABOUT THE BEST THING YOU CAN SAY ABOUT SOMEONE OR SOMETHING WHEN YOU SAY GOOD-BYE.
HERE’S ONE OF MY STORIES, ORIGINALLY WRITTEN FOR SOCIABILITY AND NOW RETURNED TO ME TO SHARE WITH YOU.
“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—
the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
— Rachel Carson
Every spring, I start getting a little antsy. I want to SEE more, GO places, and DO things. It’s like my body has begun generating more electricity but my brain hasn’t figured out yet where to channel the additional energy.
I used to call this feeling Spring Fever. Now I call it Hope.
“I used to think hope was just a warm, vague feeling. It was that sense of excitement that I got before Christmas when I was a child. It lingered a while and then disappeared,” writes author and Gallup senior scientist Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D, in his book Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others.
Today, Lopez has a different perspective. He views hope like oxygen. “We can’t live without hope.”
Why is hope so important?
According to Lopez, “When we’re excited about ‘what’s next,’ we invest more in our daily life, and we can see beyond current challenges.”
Hopeful people share four core beliefs:
The future will be better than the present.
I have the power to make it so.
There are many paths to my goals.
None of them is free of obstacles.
Hope includes a range of emotions, such as joy, awe and excitement. But it’s not empty, tunnel-vision enthusiasm. Hope is a combination of your head and heart, Lopez writes. He describes hope as “the golden mean between euphoria and fear. It is a feeling where transcendence meets reason and caution meets passion.”
In his extensive research, Lopez learned that only 50% of people measure high in hope. But he also found that hope can be learned.
And that gives me hope.
Photo credit: Stock photo