Minds connect feature articles from Achievers Consortium International and other seasoned writers.

THE AUDACITY OF HOPE

By Johnson Abbaly, President, Achievers Consortium International

A million dreams crash because too many men fold under pressure. So many have paid for shadows at the expense of an ageless name. Because it’s so easy to settle for less; so comfortable to repair to the norm and not stand out, the history of true greatness is on the endangered specie list.

The eagle did not win its fame because of its large wings nor yet because of its acute vision. The eagle prides as the queen of fowls because of its audacity to attempt unthinkable heights and kiss the peaks of mount olympus. Safety is not the goal of life! Adventure is.

The world does not celebrate men it conquers; it celebrates men who conquer it. Stories of men who upset nothing, discovered nothing, stopped nothing, provoked nothing but barely existed acquiring earth’s dust do not stir the blood of youths. But see that man whose hope is alive, he will right the wrongs and bless the name of mankind; see that man whose tongue is touched with passion’s fire and he will flame the darkest heart with high resolve and clean desire; see that man who is true to the vision he sees, he will build broken altars and bring the nations to their knees.

Dr. Martin Luther king had incredible odds stacked against him. The pursuit of equality in a system couched in white hot racism, a system that vehemently resisted the black voice like the 10th plague is nothing more than the audacity of hope. The British fleet brandishing its military might against the American colony in 1775 threatened to annihilate the opposition. But Patrick Henry will not purchase comfort and peace at the price of chains and slavery. His was the audacity of hope. He saw a colony toppling a hegemony. He rallied a cowering nation to claim one of the earth’s most astonishing victories .

Even you can ignore your mind-imposed limits and achieve the incredible. When young black minds crawl out of their woodshed at the back of village squares to nurse new dreams of taking worlds and reinventing the face of the continent, that’s not an utopia, it is the audacity of hope. When young Africans crippled by war, maimed by disease and raped by poverty birth visions of brand new worlds and take steps to confront their fears, that’s not irrational exuberance, that’s the optimism of an audacious hope. No one can keep a man down whose hope is alive.

How so easy it is today to lose hope. How so easy it is for vision to dissolve into a fantastic reverie when the flame that births it has been put out by the cold realism of the world around us. How so easy it is for our passion for impact to precipitate into a despicable agenda for self aggrandizement. Challenges come with a sworn mandate to extinguish the burning spirit of visionaries and temper the enthusiasm of youth with caution. But we say no! When dreams die, history depletes. When men of fire quit, the ice age sets in. Even gold cannot be refined in the cold. we need to ignite new fires of hope; fire that will expand our capacity to achieve in the realm of pure genius; fire that will annihilate the matrix of fear, doubt, unbelief and ignorance until like truly liberated minds we walk through walls, mock at mountains, discover new realities and expand the vision of what is possible in our lives.