Many people are fighting, or have fought, the greatest battles of their lives. Those of us with a life threatening condition or a less serious illness that needs our constant awareness are fighting a daily battle. It’s not a battle that you expect to win once and for all. It’s a battle of getting through each day and thereby trying to win every single day back, by living in the moment.
I realize that the recurring theme in our lives and our stories is hope. There is of course so many other aspects as well, but hope is the strongest. Hope is defined as a feeling of expectation and a desire for a certain thing to happen. We hope for the best. We hope that our situations improve. Hope allows us to move forward, truly believing that, regardless of the outcome, there is meaning to our existence and a greater lesson in our agony. I believe that hope is one of the strongest emotions.
It’s evident that there is a strong correlation between hope, positivity and catastrophic occurrences. I personally think that it seems as those who have hope are more optimistic and positive in their attitudes and approach and thereby fare better in the midst of traumatic events.
We have all heard of or know people who have seemed to beat the odds. Haven’t you? They have exceeded all expectations, haven’t they? Several things in life are beyond our mastery. We cannot control our illnesses. Yet, at times, we can control how we process and react to them. I am convinced that just as our physical bodies need food, our souls need hope for nourishment.
Hope is a necessity of life. It is facile to imagine the worse-case scenario. The challenge is in envisioning the victory of whatever situations we may face and having the courage to go on in spite of them. It is fighting when you don’t want to and knowing you will persevere. It also is recognizing that as a result of your persistence, others will glean hope and strength.
Think about the times the cards were stacked against you. Now realize that you are here, still fighting, defying the odds one day at a time. What helped you get through it?
It is my hope that I will see a cure for cardiovascular diseases that is costing us 17 million precious lives each year. It is my hope that heart diseases will be eradicated. I am content knowing that where there is life there is hope. We will have moments of great joy and deep despair. There will be periods of procurement and loss. Through it all, we must have hope. I will never give it up. I hope the same applies for you.
I founded HeartNodes to accelerate science and knowledge. We do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, but we do encourage you to share your wisdom. We can accelerate science by sharing the knowledge that lays in the crowd of people. I intend to spark discussions about issues pertaining to cardiovascular diseases, to help and hear the voices of real people and their battles. We can only really manage if we believe and hope for cures- do you agree?
4 thoughts on “Hope – A foundation of life”
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.
Dear Mark
Dear Mark
Thank you for your interests in HeartNodes.com
Please do not hesitate to engage by commenting on our blogs- this is one way of sparkling an open discussion that can lead to new ideas and better intervention and solutions.
Together with HeartNodes you can share knowledge more efficiently in a fully trusted and safe online space – all in order to improve heart health.
Best of wishes
Saereh
Hi Saereh,
I am most enthusiatic about your endeavour to improve cardiac health. It is admirable and important that citizens in addition to doctores, cardiovascular societies and hospitals do not leave it up to Google and the big IT companies to distribute knowledge about health and disease.
I am in favor of your attempt to always see the bigger picture from several angles and as I understand it includes at least three aspects:
1) although cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, cholesterol, diabetes, lack of physical activity are well known, they are only being taken serious by a fraction of society, and thus here is a lot to gain by reaching out to new subgroups;
2) distributing knowledge about new treatment modalities is key and is widely an open field;
3) although it is difficult to characterize and in any way to quantify the personal approach to cardiovascular health, there is no doubt that factors such as engagement, hope, love, fear, the joy of being, and coming to an understanding of what is good for you (which may be different from what is good for other patients) is extremely important and very significant to debate and communicate.
I am keen to follow HeartNodes going forward.
Cheers, Søren
Dear Professor Søren-Peter Olesen
Thank you, for your trust and faith in me and for supporting the HeartNodes.com initiatives.
Thank you for your valuable advise too.
We appreciate that you share your knowledge and expertise. Your engagement have already sparkled new ideas that may be helpful in maximizing the output and accelerate heart health beyond.
We have elaborated on your comments and find them very relevant.
We will therefore focus upcoming blogs on cardiovascular risk factors among subgroups in the society and on distributing treatment modalities.
Furthermore, we aim for communicating science in a easy to understand way as we want to create a inclusive online conversation space about heart health that allows participation of a much wider audience.- indeed and as you highlight, we believe that cross-channeling and cross-pollinating knowledge and global talents and science, can accelerate advancement of heart health – heartnodes.com is open for anyone to engage, chip in, learn and perhaps make new important discoveries together.
By including any subgroup in the society, we can aim for educating people to make well informing lifestyle choices, that often are linked to cardiovascular risk factors.
Just think about how we could accelerate knowledge if we used the full potential of the wisdom that lays in the crowd, of doctors, scientists, patients, relatives, administrators and politicians-in people.
And yes- it might be difficult to characterize and in any way to quantify the personal approach to cardiovascular health, but there is no doubt that factors such as engagement, hope, community, responsibility is extremely important and very significant to debate and communicate. However, these are core-values and a organic part of the Heartnodes.com initiatives.
Once again thank you for engaging, and please do not hesitate to chip in again, to comment on the upcoming blogs.
Best of wishes Saereh