Recently my wife’s family had a reunion camp-out at a beautiful national park in Southern Utah. Everyone was there and having a great time except my wife’s brother, Dan, who was noticeably missing. When I inquired where he was, someone said he was having some kind of car trouble. Late that night he and his family finally arrived.
When I asked Dan what happened he half-heartedly chuckled. It seems that while they were getting ready, he asked his daughter to go fuel up the car. A few minutes later she called saying that the car had made a terrible noise and now wouldn’t run. When he got to the gas station, he found that she had fueled the car with regular grade gas, but the funny thing was the car’s a diesel. Two thousand dollars later, they had the damage fixed and were able to make the trip. The lesson, of course, is that bad fuel equals bad performance, damage, breakdown, and expense. The human body is much the same. Bad fuel or nutrition equals bad performance, eventual breakdown, expensive doctor visits, and regrettably it becomes progressively more difficult to fix and reverse as time goes on.
I want to talk to you about hope—your hope for optimal health. What does the word “hope” conjure up for you? To most people it is a wishy-washy, fingers crossed concept. It is weak, unsure, unfounded optimism, with no teeth in it. If something does happen, it was mostly by luck. It doesn’t entail any planning, effort, or investment. It amounts to a vague, “I hope, I hope, I hope” concept.
It turns out that the original definition of hope was anticipation, expectation, confidence, and all but guaranteed. It’s a strong trust that by following your present pathway you will attain, you will succeed. The opposite of hope is hopelessness, despair, discouragement, and pessimism.
I think of hope as similar to an escalator. As you step on that moving staircase, you are not there yet, but if you just stay on it you will get to where it is going. It reminds me of the advice from the famous author and lecturer, Stephen Covey, to “begin with the end in mind.” I mean, really, how would you like to get to the top of the escalator and find out it was not where you wanted to go? Some people start off on an escalator to a desired goal, but change their mind or just get tired and leap to a different one. Many jump from escalator to escalator and can’t figure out why they never seem to get anywhere. That’s why it’s important to always keep the end in mind.
It’s important to know where your escalator will end up. Where does the junk food escalator end? How about the tobacco, the soda, the Twinkie, the meat and potato, or the alcohol escalators? Let me assure you, they wind up at very different places than the raw fruit and vegetable or natural wholesome protein escalator, and certainly a much different outcome than the exercise escalator, or the healthy weight escalator.
So to realize your hope for health, abundance, and longevity, begin with the end in mind, get on the right escalator, and enjoy the ride.
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