Humanity is threatened by so many things in our world today, for some people, the threats range from: water, poverty, climate change, health, politics, education, religious and racial tolerance. In recent times, we now speak of wars, pandemics and insecurity. At a time like this in our world today, a time of hopelessness, a time of covid reality, a time of war, a time of terrorism and banditry, the question we often ask is "How can I climb out of my hopelessness?"
For many especially in war zones, they could remember how their lives changed in a twinkle of eye: how the whole an neighbourhood was in total panic, stores closing, mothers searching for their children and picking them up from schools, market men and women gathering their chores to go reunite with their families with the thought of better safety alternatives and soldiers parading in the streets with several checkpoints. Not to mention the fear of uncertainty in people's eyes, thoughts of not knowing what would happen next and what tomorrow would be; then followed by a life of hopelessness with nothing but sounds of gunshots, shooting non-stop. They still remember how suddenly, life changed, they ran from their beloved homeland, or became refugees in their homeland and now they are shadows of themselves.
They watched their dreams shattered, they watched their future shaken to its foundation and help seems futile, no helper seem to be coming from anywhere, at this point they were probably asking, “Quod vadis?”
At the beginning of 2020, we all had dreams for the year, we made plans and made resolutions, invariably we are all dreamers and rightly so. But as things and life unfolded in the cause of the year, the world was hit with the advent of the invisible coronavirus. At that point all our aspirations appeared to become “Broken Dreams.” People watched their goals fade away and they might be thinking that their end is near. Amidst all these, we must understand that hopelessness no doubts is caused by external factors, but it is also something inside you, a kind of delusion that only you should take yourself out from; you just need to understand that which triggers your inner power and try to change your reality. Not having a clear goal in life, is like travelling without destination, that would be nonsensical.
I remember at the heart of the covid when the whole world was in total lockdown and many so-called men of God were not helping matters with the doomsday prophesies and propagating several conspiracy theories in a field, they are totally amateurs. During that period, I once saw a post on the social media that reads thus: “Dear God, please remove 2020 from my year because I didn’t use it.” Such a post sounded interesting, but more than that, it explains the level of frustration a lot of persons were passing through with the lockdown occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic that year. The despondency is such that to a larger extent, dreams about weddings, anniversaries, vacations, graduations and other occasions were postponed. In fact, if it were possible to postpone birthdays, people would not mind doing that.
In life, we have dreamt many dreams and in the course of time, we have seen many of these dreams shattered, destroyed and even crushed. We are justifiably angry, because we have all literally become “Broken Dreamers.” More so, at a time like this, when war and terrorism ravage our world, even the covid pandemic isn't over, then crowned up by a myopic government. The anger increases with every passing day because we don’t know what the future holds for us and for our cherished dreams. At a time like this, we should look at life beyond covid, life beyond terrorism and banditry, life beyond wars... Now is the time to dream again; never sacrifice your dreams and hopes on the altar of anger necessitated by all these ills. Live out your dreams, do not use your own hand to crush your dreams. At a time like this, you must look at your dreams again; begin to review them and keep hoping.
Everyone seems to be waiting for one thing or the other, some are waiting for a dream job, some are waiting for the love of their lives, etc. Sometimes, these dreams do not come to past and then you see your friends getting married, getting good jobs, starting big businesses and at those moments, you are like, ‘it seems everyone is living out my dream.’ You see this popular Nigerian phrase “Look at your mates,” it has led so many to despair, suicide and even ritual killings for not meeting up to the standard of their mates and the world. Now, there is a choice for you and that is; “when one dream is on hold, go live another dream.” The choices you make in life can either make or mar you; don’t sit there and become so obsessed with yourself, because dreams tell our hearts, ‘We are living, not dying’ meaning there is HOPE. Therefore, hope is a choice, not a feeling, we smile not because we don’t have troubles, but because we are a people of hope.
At a time like this, you can only ask, “Why is life so unfair? Why do bad things happen to good and innocent people? Some people will succeed while others won’t because life is fundamentally unfair and it is a survival of not only the fittest but also of the luckiest.” These are often our thoughts in such moments of shattered dreams, but the truth is that, in life you never get points for trying hard or being good, but should you stop trying and being good? The answer is obviously NO. We often forget that bad things not only happen to good people, but it does happen to everyone, just like good things. We forget that life is only unfair when comparing to someone else’. Instead of looking out, look in and ask yourself, ‘What is life teaching me at a time like this?’
This is one hard message to believe: the biggest obstacle you would encounter any time you try to make a particular dream come true is 'Time', because it doesn’t go back and you cannot fix the past from that sense. People often say, “If you fail, try again and learn from your mistakes,” they are obviously right on that, but we all forget one thing important, ‘Time'. Our life span is too short, our resources are limited, our health is so fragile, we don’t have countless opportunities to try again and again. Sad enough, lots of people don’t even have a single chance, for many reasons. Now, this is an obstacle of hopelessness, but no success story is arrived through hopelessness. To achieve anything from small to great, you need to start and finish with hope, hope is one of the most necessary ingredients required to succeed, if you don’t see any reason to hope for, you simply become hopeless, blame God, blame everyone and everything and have your dreams shattered and crushed. Remember that at a time like this, “when one dream is on hold, go live another dream.” Life is full of dynamism, embrace the dynamisms of life and stay hopeful.
- By Rev. Fr. Jude Ofuani CMF
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