There Is Always Hope

By the author of The Prepper’s Guide to Post-Disaster Communications and Zombie Choices.

I believe that one of the things that makes America so great as a nation is that we refuse to bow to fatalism. As other nations collapse, their citizens tend to bow their heads and say, “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it, so I might as well just accept it.”

Sure, you can do that. And evil will win because of your unwillingness to stop it.

We don’t do things that way here in America.

We stopped Japan, saved England, stopped the Holocaust, figured out yellow fever, tore down the Berlin Wall, rescued the Philippines, and put an end to Osama bin Laden.

Americans believe in hope.

Succumbing to fatalism doesn’t make one a better person. It doesn’t make you a “realist.” It just makes you somebody devoid of hope – somebody who has swallowed the pill of apathy.

There is always hope.

Yes, we must look at the truths of the world around us and acknowledge facts. And there are times when the facts are stacked against one. But wisdom allows us to see that hope is always present.

I write this largely because of my prior piece on the Belgorod. I never want to give my fellow Americans the feeling that the state of things in our nation is hopeless.

There is always hope. 

It’s when we surrender ourselves to fatalism that we create the self-fulfilling prophecy of our nation failing. Why was it that Nazi shortwave propaganda throughout Europe during World War 2 was largely used to generate fatalism throughout occupied and under attack nations?

It was because Goebbels knew that if he could destroy hope, the German armies would have a much easier time accomplishing the wickedness that they had in mind. If he could get the French to think that it was all pointless – it was all over – then the Nazis could continue to occupy Paris.

But people didn’t lose hope, and the good won.

On October 6, 1973, Israel came under a surprise attack when most of its troops were on holiday. They were completely surrounded by Egyptian forces to the south and Syrian forces to the north. Yet, inexplicably, Israel won what would come to be known as the Yom Kippur War – in less than a month.

If the element of surprise is one of the keys to victory if numerical superiority and the ability to surround your enemy matters, how on earth was the Yom Kippur War won?

There is always hope. 

As the Donner Party resorted to cannibalism, trapped in the Sierra Nevada by furious snowfall that had left them stranded far from civilization, they were surprised one day when a group of rescuers found their way to the scene. One man, John Stark, carried nine starving children back to safety single-handedly.

Who would have expected a single man to have marched out into the mountains to haul nine of the party back to safety? Absolutely nobody.

Yet it happened.

There is always hope. 

After days of being trapped underground, rapidly running out of oxygen, and fearful that they were to be entombed alive, rescuers finally were able to get a special escape pod to a group of Chilean miners. Every single one of them was saved.

Despite the threat of running out of time, cave-ins, or malfunctions, the Chilean miners were rescued as the world watched.

There is always hope. 

During Hurricane Katrina, a pregnant woman waded through the floodwaters to reach the hospital. She was in labor and needed an emergency C-section. There was just one problem: Katrina had rendered the hospital without power, cell service, and without running water. Things looked incredibly bleak.

Yet a blind ham radio operator had willingly stayed behind, setting up shop in the hospital with his radio. He was able to call in a medevac, and both the woman and baby were saved. A blind man – one whom society would typically consider insignificant and unable to do much – was able to save those two human beings’ lives.

Did the pregnant woman walk into the hospital thinking it was going to be a blind man that saved her life?

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There is always hope. 

For 76 days, Steven Callahan was lost at sea aboard an inflatable rubber raft. He subsisted off of seagulls and rainwater amidst a setting that seemed intent on taking his life. And yet, in the end, the world learned his story.

With minimal food, minimal water, and the constant threat of sinking, being eaten by sharks, or being baked alive, he was saved and lived to tell the tale.

Why is that?

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It’s because there is always hope. 

So do not succumb to apathy, fear, or resignation. This does not have to be the end. Good always stands a chance. There is always hope. But if we renounce it, then we have forsaken every chance that we have. To live without hope is to cheer on evil – to embrace it.

The world is filled with enough evil. Let us cheer on the good and let us be the good ourselves as well.

The world needs it.

Do you have some examples of hope winning the day? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

About Aden

Aden Tate is a regular contributor to TheOrganicPrepper.com and TheFrugalite.com. Aden runs a micro-farm where he raises dairy goats, a pig, honeybees, meat chickens, laying chickens, tomatoes, mushrooms, and greens. Aden has four published books, What School Should Have Taught You, The Faithful Prepper,  An Arm and a Leg, The Prepper’s Guide to Post-Disaster Communications, and Zombie Choices. You can find his podcast The Last American on Preppers’ Broadcasting Network.