Developing Hope & Optimism

When I was in Starehe Institute in the years 2006 and 2007, we used to have what we called Dean's Talk - weekly meetings between students and staff of the institute. I have fond memories of the speeches I delivered during those Dean's Talk meetings. And I remember, too, what the teachers would tell us, such as exhorting us to refrain from watching adult films in the institute computer laboratories.

A male teacher once told us, during one of those Dean's Talk meetings, of a friend of his who would think of road accidents before embarking on a journey in his car, his reasoning being that such kind of thinking would reduce his chances of getting involved in an accident. I now think the teacher's friend had a point in his way of thinking after it has dawned on me lately that most of the stuff we anticipate don't happen; it is those things that we don't expect that regularly happen. Have you also discovered that?

But come to think of it again, I don't find it wise to go around in a droopy face expecting bad things to happen. We ought to be filled with hope and optimism as St. Paul advises us in some of his epistles in the Bible; we should hope that good things are coming our way and be optimistic that all things are working out for our own good.

To be honest, it has not been easy for me to be hopeful and optimistic. There have been times I have imagined traumatic experiences happening in my life, traumatic experiences like a loved one being diagnosed with a terminal illness or there being a funeral at our home here in Kiserian. Whenever I have caught myself imagining such trauma, I have pinched myself painfully and whispered to myself, "Thuita, stop dwelling on the bad stuff that could occur; focus on all the good things that could happen."

Recently, as I lay in bed at night waiting for sleep to come, I caught myself worrying what I would do if my laptop broke down. Where would I get money to buy another laptop for listening to hymns and doing my blogging hobby? I wondered. And I don't know why the thought of my laptop breaking down entered my mind; maybe it's as a result of the way my laptop has slowed down since I upgraded its operating system about two months ago. Anyway, when I caught myself worrying about my laptop breaking down, I tweaked my left arm and said to my mind, "Thuita, think of what could go right, not what could go wrong."

I don't know about you but for me, there are quite a number of wonderful things that can happen in my life such as meeting the woman of my dreams, receiving a donation for maintaining this blog or coming up with a beautiful melody for a great hymn. Given the way I am regularly pinching myself in an effort to remind myself of all those wonderful things that could happen to me, it is now apparent to me that hope and optimism are like muscles; they have to be practised regularly for them to become stronger.

Talking of strengthening muscles, I am reminded of an experience I had in the last decade. Back in 2012, I purchased rollers for firming up my abdominal muscles. But guess what! Whenever I stretched with the rollers for three or four days, I would feel in my stomach muscles an excruciating pain that would force me to give up using rollers.

Around September 2017, I again began stretching with rollers. Like in my previous trials, I did feel pain in my belly muscles after several days of stretching but this time I persisted, for I was serious about losing weight. And wow! The pain in my belly muscles gradually disappeared as I continued exercising with rollers. I have kept doing the exercises since then. These days, I stretch with rollers 12 times daily without feeling any discomfort. And I would probably be stretching more times had my senior brother Joe Kagigite not warned me that over-exertion with rollers can cause severe back problems.

Now that stretching with rollers has become second nature to me, I do it with the ease of a fish in water. But I know if I cease using rollers for a month and then start stretching with them again, the excruciating pain will come back. That's why I am always keen to keep on using rollers each passing day.

Hope and optimism work in a similar way as the stomach muscles. They have to be practised every day if they are to become second nature. And once we have infused ourselves with hope, we still need to keep thinking optimistically because the news and challenges of everyday living can easily erode our hope. That's all I am saying.

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed this story about developing hope and optimism, you might also enjoy another one I wrote two years ago on "Developing Courage". Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.