Hope

It was precisely at 8:10 AM on June, 10, 1968, when I was discharged from the US Army at Fort Meade, Maryland.

I was stationed with the 6th Armored Calvary. In April of 1968 we were deployed as riot control troops in Washington DC, after Martin Luther King was assassinated, and now Presidential hopeful, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated and my former unit was on alert to be in Baltimore or Washington D.C., if any riots broke out there.

For me, however, my hitch in the Army was over and I was heading home.

All of my clothing was stuffed unceremoniously in my army duffel bag along with my shaving kit. I had $200.00 in my wallet representing my net worth.

I remember walking to the cab stand at Fort Meade, to head over to the airport in Baltimore to fly to Illinois where my parents lived at the time. Today was Monday and I was set to start summer school at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois on Wednesday, June 12. In a few hours, I will be “back on the street again.”

The overwhelming feeling that consumed me at this time is the same overwhelming feeling consuming me forty one years later is one of “hope.”

As I walked to few blocks over to the cab stand, I remember not feeling my feet touch the pavement. It was if I was gliding through the air. Once the cab reached the airport in Baltimore, I reached in my wallet and gave the cab driver one-hundred dollars for a twelve dollar fair. I told the cab driver to keep the change.

In my stupor of hope, I just handed the driver one-half of my net worth, as I headed toward a new sense of adventure and of hope.

I never really thought about that gesture, until today.

In the United States today, all I read about in the newspapers or on the Internet, is how everything is so economically depressed. It is even suggested in the newspapers and coming from politicians everywhere that the American Dream is dead…that we all need to consume less, spend less be less, and have less.

I find that way of thinking insulting and totally wrong.

I am sure that is what all of our parents sacrificed for as we were growing up and what our men and women in the military died for and still die for, to preserve our freedom.

Coming out of that short period of time that had two inspirational leaders killed because they saw a better America, I could understand only one path to pursue.

The path that I took and that I will always take is one of “hope.”

Hope will navigate you beyond other’s limited expectations.

Hope will give you a positive outlook that will wake you up early in the morning.

Hope will excite you everyday to do your best in spite of adversity.

Exactly forty one years ago today, I gave away half of my fortune in return to keep something alive.

What I wanted to keep alive and want to keep alive today is “hope.”



I wish you "hope."

Wayne F. Perkins

Master Hypnotist Trainer
Hypnotism Education

www.wayneperkins.net

Learn how to navigate these economic times and foster hope with live consulting by phone with Wayne F. Perkins

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”Annihilate stress and propagate hope.”