The Power of Hope & Happiness: The Bucket List of a 4 year old in Africa

Videos like the one above inspire me more than I can say. Here is a boy with seemingly many cards stacked against him. Yet, despite it all, he finds a way to partake in one of the most beautiful and inexplicable things humans are capable of--hope.

Hope belongs to those who have the courage to believe that goodness still exists in the world. 

I truly believe this statement, but believing in goodness has become more and more difficult in our day and age. We live in a world where we are taught to be pragmatic and insatiable. We ask much of ourselves and expect little of others. The guarded are rewarded and the open are deemed fools. 

 Though these words are difficult to accept, they are almost always agreed on. With all the pain and suffering going on in the world, one can’t help but wonder where true happiness lies…whether it truly exists. It is easy to give up—to surrender ourselves to bleak outlooks of reality and protect our spirits from disappointment—but we can’t. 

We are human in our beliefs. Animals and the environment are subject to instinct and the natural science of our surroundings. We, on the other hand, are given the rather peculiar quality of hope. Despite all the sadness in this world, we continue to unreasonably believe that easier and better times are on the horizon. 

No matter how grim of an outlook you may claim, each breath that you take is a tribute to the hope in your heart. 

Make no mistake: you are not weak or naive to believe in the seemingly impossible. The smallest ounce of faith requires the strength of warriors. Our attempts at this perseverance binds humanity together. It is in our common partaking of mindless but heartfelt faith that we are able to live among others. We are united not in our suffering, but in our hope. 

We must not let the world rob us of the beauty of our faith. Goodness in this world has become more and more difficult to find amidst the terrors of today. But we should find comfort in the fact that our happiness is not founded on the proof of no evil...

It is in our faith and belief that happiness does still exist—somewhere and somehow. My hope is built on a trust in God and my happiness is found in the recognition of His abundant blessings around me, but wherever your happiness may be, I dare you to find it, chase it, and most importantly, believe that it exists.