Last year I ran a successful year-long program called Powered by Hope. The intent of the program is to help you follow your creative dreams by powering your spirit with hope! I am glad the program was so well received. This year, in addition to new posts, I will also be sharing a few of the best posts from the program. From now until the end of 2015, you will receive a minimum of two posts a month focused on hope. I hope you will enjoy them and that they will inspire you to follow your dreams!

HAVE FAITH

A few years ago, a dear friend told me to buy a book called A Fortune-Teller Told Me. It is a book about a jet-setting reporter, Tiziano Terzani, who was advised by an Asian fortune-teller not to fly for a year or he would surely die. The reporter was told that he had to do all his traveling by car or train or boat. Instead of ignoring the fortune-teller, the author embraced the prediction. He did not fly and chose to do his work by crisscrossing Asia without ever setting foot off solid ground. Then, of course, predictably, he wrote a book about his adventures.

I enjoyed the book. It is very interesting read.

But something about the fortune-teller stayed with me.

I kept thinking about all the “fortune-tellers” in my own life. I have had people tell me all kinds of things ranging from “you are going to be a complete disaster as a writer” to “you are going to win amazing awards for your writing.” The people who make these “predictions” are not psychic or gifted astrologers, but rather they are people who genuinely care about me and my well-being.

Whether I like it or not, they are my personal fortune-tellers.

So the question arises, whom should I listen to? The gloom-and-doom teller or the all-things-are-glorious teller?

I happen to think both are wrong, but in my heart of hearts I worry … what if they are not? Should I go back to my day job? Should I start clearing shelves to hold all the awards I am going to win?

It is very hard to not let other people define who we are and who we want to be. The author of the book I mentioned above was one of the lucky few. The prediction he received helped him. Most don’t. They are exactly opposite: they are truly detrimental to success. At least that is what I feel. Let’s say I take the gloomy prediction about my career seriously. Then I have done myself a disservice by not even trying. And if I take the glorious prediction, then I am setting myself up for having my hopes and expectations crushed if the fortune-teller is wrong.

The only one who can predict the future is: NO ONE.

Many smart and savvy people can predict what could possibly happen, but with a 100% certainty? No way.

We have to live with these fortune-tellers, but not with their prophecies. We have to learn to live in the realm of possibility, of hope, of faith. We have to create our own fortunes.

I was thinking about this as I was driving this morning. I stopped at a light and read the sticker on the car in front of me: “True faith will always be rewarded.” Now, that is the fortune you can take to the bank.

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