Many in the world are paralyzed by crushing hopelessness and fear in their lives.

They may be struggling from financial, health, family, or human rights issues. Those struggling may face situations or even other people who seek to threaten their health, their homes, their livelihood, and even their lives. This struggle with hopelessness and fear has no limits to one race, one religion, one ethnic background, one gender, one generation, or even one financial situation.

Hopelessness and Fear are great equalizers to human beings.

Hopelessness and Fear seek to attack us from within.

They seek to make us question not only our security and each other, but also they seek to make us question ourselves.

They will even drive some to the desperation of hate and violence. While we often dismiss those whose hearts are hardened by hate as simply lost, let us not forget they were not born into hate. They were taught hate and they were taught violence. The hate and violence of some is because of their own fears, their own insecurities, and their need to dominate others because they fear that they without domination their lives will hold no meaning.

We can and we must teach those consumed by hate and violence differently. But to do so, we must also overcome hopelessness and fear in our own lives, to set an example for others.

People of religious faiths are taught to reach to their faith in a higher power to believe in divine inspiration, strength, and even an afterlife. If you are a person of faith, it is vital that you use such faith to give you courage and strength.

Find a direction in your religion to love one another, and if you love one another, have the religious faith to also love yourself and those around you, even those who wish you ill. If your religion teaches forgiveness, then also find the religious faith to forgive yourself and those around you, even those who wish you ill.

I know how easy that is to say and how hard that is to do. When you feel that you have failed and that you are not where you believe you should be in life, you lose patience and courage with yourself. When you feel that others have failed you and even hurt you, then you may feel that such individuals do not deserve such love and forgiveness. But it is especially at these times, when love and forgiveness is the hardest to give and receive, that it is the most important to give and receive. This is really when love and forgiveness can truly make a difference in ourselves and in our society.

In addition to religious faiths, there is more than one type of faith. While those with religious faith have faith in God or the higher power that they believe in, there is also the need to find faith here on Earth as well, regardless of your beliefs.

We also need to have faith in ourselves, in one another, and in our shared human race that we will continue to survive, we will continue to show love and mercy towards one another, and that we will continue to have a future. Despite the sickness, the injustices, the travesties, the oppression, even the genocide of people by other people around the world, the human race marches on.

As a human race, the march of life continues.

This shared march of life should also give us hope and courage.

Certainly, in our individual situations where we feel fear and lose hope, it is often hard to see the value in this ongoing march of life.

We may be frustrated or despondent in our disagreements with others. But we can also choose to find courage that there is an endless opportunity for dialogue as fellow human beings.

We may grow fearful of our poverty, our failing health, and our age. But we can also choose to be thankful for the good days of the past and continue to appreciate the comfort of our fellow human beings in difficult times.

We may have heavy hearts over the loss of loved ones, friends, family, or the loss of relationships that brought great joy to our hearts. But we can also choose to be grateful for the comfort of our human family, and the endless relationships we can potentially have with them.

YOU ARE NEVER ALONE, no matter how lonely you may feel. Your brothers and sisters in humanity are there with you continuing the march of life for the human race.

We may be distraught at facing the dark door of death itself. But we can also choose to have the courage to remember that our end is not THE END. While the march of life for us may end, for other brothers and sisters in humanity, it is just beginning. Our human family will carry on somehow, as it has done over the years.

We may cringe at the growing darkness. But even in the darkest night, we can also choose give thanks for the light from the stars above.

You may think that you are forgotten, neglected, and alone. But somewhere in our shared Earth, there are those of your human brothers and sisters who send their love to you, whose hearts ache for you, who wish the best for you. They may not know your name, but they know YOU. They know you as a fellow human being, as a brother or sister in our human race. They may not be able to solve your problems, but there are human hearts that care about your problems, your fear, your hopelessness, your losses, and your struggles, even for those who hate.

There are those in your human family who seek to help others every day, and there are those in your human family who pray for those of all religions and those with none, simply because they love you as fellow human beings. They march alongside you, in the march of life.

From birth to death, we find ourselves in a march of life. That journey, like all journeys, may have rocks and difficult paths. That journey may find us at some point at an end from which we personally cannot recover. But our brothers and sisters in humanity will pick up the torch and keep the flame of the human spirit alive.

Our march of life is your march of life, a journey that we take TOGETHER.

Fear Not. You Are Not Alone.

In the March of Life, the Best is Yet to Come.