With the 2018 New Year comes a flurry of goal setting. Your local gym relies on it. They also rely on the fact that by February you have stopped going but your credit card keeps delivering the monthly fee! You probably didn’t achieve all your goals last year, and perhaps you wish you could have done better.

Even though you may have some regrets from the past year, what really matters is that you have hope and a vision for 2018. This is what powers you forward. The same is true, not just for your life, but for your community and nation. It starts with hope – that is why hope is the most essential of emotions. With it, you are undefeatable, without it, you are already beaten.

Before I even set a goal, I realize I need to evaluate my Hope Quotient. Without hope, my goals will be empty words that are impossible to accomplish. It shouldn’t start with goal setting. I need to explore what I have hope for.

The Hope of Every Parent

Every parent has hope for their child. They look at their newborn and are naturally filled with hope. That feeling stimulates them to think about what kinds of support the child needs to succeed so that he or she can fulfill their potential and experience happiness. It’s that simple and natural.

That realization made me think of God. He/She is all of humanity’s Heavenly Parent. I wondered what His/Her hopes and dreams are. Looking at the state of the world today, you can only assume God’s intention must have been cut short. I reflected that my hope must be connected to God’s hope. I stumbled across a snippet of a speech that Rev. Moon gave in 1978 that spoke to this, and seemed as relevant today as the day it was spoken:

Be a light in the darkness

“When you look at our world today, common sense tells you that there cannot be much joy or hope for God and not much of anything, which He can take pride in. If that is the case, but you as an individual, community or nation can bring hope to God then you are indispensable to God. You don’t have to be the leader of a powerful nation to be needed by God. If you are just one feeble individual, yet you harbor hope for God then you are very precious to Him, more than anything else in the world.

This world is now living in despair and hopelessness. If in spite of the bleakness, you can offer hope to the world, then you don’t need to have a position of power for this entire world to look at you with great expectation. Throughout history people have lived in tragedy, sadness, and corruption. But any individual who can bring hope to the world and God, is certainly precious. It doesn’t matter whether that person is a woman or man, or where he or she comes from, as long as that person becomes the hope of God and humankind.

That person is like a glowing lantern in the darkness of the world, and because the rest of the world is so dark, it has to pay attention and follow that light. What kind of group would offer hope for God? If proud Americans found that lantern of hope would they follow it outside their nation? Your nationality wouldn’t make any difference because that hope is greater than any national boundary.”

Hope for something bigger in 2018

This sentiment opened my mind to something bigger for 2018. It gave me hope. I want to live a life without the normal boundaries that keep us stuck in our little boxes. I realized God is infinite in ideals and capacity, and I can be like that too. With a sense of hope to become someone who can impact the world, I picked up my pen to start writing down my goals. It feels easier because the goals are simply there to help me structure how I can make an impact. I’m not simply trying to make myself go the gym!

Here’s to the New Year and great happiness as you pursue your passions, and the things you hope for in 2018.