Hope and Inspiration

Hope and Inspiration go together, I sincerely believe. To bring hope to others you have to first inspire them. And to have hope yourself, you must also be inspired. Hope and inspiration both naturally flow from loving intention. That’s why love – not the sentiment but the character-driven action – is always the anser.

Everyone reading this blog knows I’ve long been working on a new book. It’s former title, The 10 Commandments of Character, represented an expansion on the principles I first outlined in my book Character Disturbance. (See pp. 140-145.) But Essentials for the Journey is a distinctly different book. It has a much broader focus. And that’s because to be of truly sound character you have to be emotionally, morally, psychologically, and spiritually healthy. Mature character is all about complete, holistic health.

The Heart as Human Filter

Ultimately, I want my upcoming book to afford its readers cause for hope and inspire them to bring hope to others. Accomplishing that requires a transformation of the heart. As I see it, the human heart has the potential to be the world’s finest filtration system. What do I mean by that? I mean that all sorts of things enter our lives and hearts. Many of those things are “contaminents” of sorts, capable of making us ill, and on many dimensions. But we don’t have to let those contaminents re-enter the world.

There are two main ways we can filter out life’s many toxins. In a passive manner, we can simply trap them, letting only what’s pure pass back out of us. But that means letting toxins remain in us, which carries its own risks to our health. In a more active manner, however, our hearts can also be agents of true transformation. We have the capacity to turn ugliness into beauty, sour lemons into nutritious lemonade. It’s a tricky process, requiring much mindfulness. But we definitely have it within our power to do this.

My Hopes for the New Year

Here are my fervent hopes for the coming year:

• I hope my books, podcasts, training seminars, etc. continue to bring some measure of healing to our character-impaired world.
• I hope my forthcoming book provides the inspiration we all need be more active participants in that healing process.

But more than anything, I hope my work touches hearts and helps wounded hearts heal. And I also hope hearts will be transformed. Hearts full of toxins can’t help but leach some of those toxins back into the world. But hearts transformed into active filters have the power to transform the world itself. That’s the power of mature love.

So to everyone, my very best wishes for a truly healthy and prosperous New Year. I’ll be taking some time off. But I’ll be back the second week of 2022! Follow this link to my year-end message on the Character Matters YouTube Channel.