Criteria:

Messages of Hope are more than simply "Feel Good" or "Warm and Fuzzy" things, and are carefully thought out so as to avoid pitting "do's and don'ts" against each other, or inviting "which hunts" (sic). Also, no platitudes, please!

Rather, they are statements that bring out the truth of our inner humanity and celebrate it in all of its light. Even a simple thought such as "We can make it if we try," or "Here comes the Sun," or "It's going to be alright" engender and inspire hope. They are messages which aid people in “remembering one's self.” Remembering one’s strengths, their inner place where people get their sense of strength in order to have hope, so they may dare to dream, have aspirations grow within them from those dreams, and actually take actions that are fulfilling to their sense of purpose. “People need to remember who they are. They are someone with the capacity for love.”

These simple statements are much more powerful than they seem they could be because of the amazing human ability to visualize positive outcomes , even in the midst of terrible events and fearful realities. Our messages of hope will allow people to tap into that powerful ability to visualize positive outcomes.

So the first criteria would be that we are careful of what we would have people visualize! Such as, “Through our compassion for others, the world will be made a more beautiful place!”

The second criteria would be to be careful of how you make a person feel about themselves personally and in relationship with others around them. We must be careful to analyze our messages that they do not contain hidden guilt-inducing aspects in the event a person does not do as the message might suggest. Guilt and a feeling of shamefulness help no one. We also wish to bind people together, being careful that our messages do not imply that a person would be ostracized from their local society if they did not act like a message may suggest they act in order to properly conform with some societal or cultural "rules." We want to inspire anyone exposed to one of our messages, that they are able to picture a better reality for themselves, their family and friends, their community, or even the world, and encourage that they hold the notion that such a visualized reality holds the possiblity that it could actually happen to turn out the way they imagined.

The most positive aspect of building hope in people is that it also builds a sense of community . Emphasizing the effects of being with supportive people is what we wish to display. Be careful that the messages are inclusive and not exclusive, that is, that they allow even one's enemies to be a part of one's hopes, not only one's friends. Enemies may change to friends and friends to enemies, but people should be focused on and celebrating the notion that such things may be true, yet there still exists the everlasting fountain of hope that springs eternally and in abundance. Hope transcends all things. So, we would place our emphasis upon positive similarities as well – things we all have in common, such as, “We all dream of a world full of love and hope.”

The third criteria then is simply that having hope is magnificent - that is, it magnifies those realms of possibilities that together produce positive results. "Possibility Thinking" was what the Rev. Robert Schuler called it. If we illustrate possibilities for producing positive results, it will encourage people to imagine those possibilities as actually happening ... and if felt strongly enough, will have people acting "as if it were so" - a most powerful state of mind for producing positive results.

But we are not yet involved in "Messages of Action." That may come later, but until people feel they can accomplish change and all the other positive outcomes of having hope to begin with, they will not yet be ready to be able to think in terms of actions. Hope itself must come first.

Having hope involves one in the realm of possibilities, which, if manifested as reality, would improve people's lives everywhere. But defining those possibilities too strictly will backfire on itself - the human spirit needs to be unchained and unbridled, allowed to feel its power in the fullest way so that later it can feel empowered to focus that power on actually creating results. Having hope allows the spirit to allow itself to soar! The act of individually choosing to allow the spirit to soar must come first. Hope empowers people to make such a choice.

So, “It’s an inside job,” as Trisa Fairchild put it so succinctly. We are dealing with a how a person feels inside of themselves about what is possible. Compassion, a clean world, love and peace, a clean conscience, unity, friends, loving one’s fellow man, altruism, patience, tolerance, delight, synergy, smiling, friendliness, reaching out and loving someone, gratitude, appreciation, aloneness vs. togetherness, one’s highest calling, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. These are "inside" jobs. Our role is to empower people to believe these kinds of things are things they can really experience for themselves.

Some things to ask while evaluating a potential Message of Hope:

• Does the statement involve not doing something? Does it start with a negative? Well, that simply won't do! But still, seek the kernel of what is intended in the positive sense - perhaps the 'flunkers' can be transformed into powerful messages of hope after all, suggesting deeper meanings than we might have considered without them!
  • Are they asked to "end" something, or "stop" something? The words mentioned describing what shouldn't exist are the ones people will visualize , and we do not want people visualizing problems and negative circumstances. I firmly believe that if we visualize problems, those problems will persist and even worsen. See if you can switch it around to be a positive result being visualized instead.
• Does it involve any "shoulds" - does it imply that one should feel badly if they do not live in the manner implied by the statement?
  • Does it involve guilt? Would someone feel they were guilty of some universal crime if they did not feel a certain way all the time implied by the statement? Could it cause a person to feel ashamed of themselves?
  • Does it imply that a person is a failure if they cannot have what the statement implies that they should have? You have to look deeply at innocent enough seeming statements to discover if this failure implication exists - whether it is built in, however subtly.
• Is the statement an actual Message of Hope, or simply a warm and fuzzy feeling thought or idea? Escapism is not our business. Empowerment, rather, is.
• Is the statement really merely a platitude - a statement with no meaning, stated as if it were significant?

(The following definition of the word 'platitude' is taken from the Devil's Dictionary - A cynical view of the world written by Ambrose Bierce):

• platitude
• n.

• The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope's-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

Let's avoid creating such awful things!!!

• Does it describe an impossible fantasy? Does it ask a person to bite off more than they can chew? Does it instill delusions of grandeur, or demand one be superhuman?

Yes, these criteria make coming up with qualifying Messages of Hope into a real challenge, we are so inculturated by the fake and meaningless ones, or those well intentioned, but unwittingly causing more of what they would desire to eliminate!

Never merely eliminate an idea because it flunks the above criteria!

* Better we analyze a wayward message's true, inner and heartfelt intention and restate it correctly so it actually can be effective! Much of what we do as a business will be to transform existing organizations' poorly construed messages into effective ones - into bona fide Messages of Hope. Transformation of some misguided methods of expression into positive images will be one of our greatest contributions to the non-profit world.