Mackay: Hope is the American product

The most important product that America has managed to produce is not the automobile, television or computer. It is hope — not only for ourselves, but for the world. In these times of so much tension and divisive rhetoric, hope is what will sustain us.

America is, after all, a country founded on hope.

We recently celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and few people represented hope more than that legendary civil rights leader. He said, "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

Businesses thrive on hope. Hope is manifested in long-range plans. Hope is apparent in building projects and expansion schemes. Hope is what brings new products to the market and what makes salespeople tick.

Few people in the history of college sports have had a greater impact than my close friend Lou Holtz. He's the only coach ever to lead six different schools to bowl games — all within his first two years as head coach at each school. How did he do it? Well, according to Coach, there's really only one way.

"I think everybody has to have four things in their life to be complete," he told me. "First, everybody needs something to do — something you have a passion for regardless of age. Second, everybody needs someone to love. Third thing, everybody needs something to hope for — something that you're really striving to accomplish. And finally, everybody needs something to believe in."

In my mind, one of the best examples of hope is the backyard gardener. A gardener is someone who believes that what goes down must come up. Planting tiny seeds, hoping the ground is fertile, hoping for enough rain to nourish the seeds, but not so much that they will drown, hoping for sunshine and warm temperatures, hoping for a bountiful crop or beautiful flowers.

When you plant seeds of hope in your garden, business or life, there are no promises. But there is a driving force that makes you persevere because you have hope that you will succeed. You have something to believe in.

According to a famous story, Bishop Milton Wright was expounding on the notion that the second coming of Christ was near, during an 1890 sermon. He said that everything that God had sent man to Earth to do was accomplished. A member of the congregation jumped to his feet and said that someday, man would fly.

The bishop responded with the predictable line, "If God had intended man to fly, he would have given him wings."

Yet 13 years later, in 1903, Bishop Wright's two sons, Orville and Wilbur, proved him wrong.

I wonder what Bishop Wright would say about the space program — another amazing example of hope.

Just remember these words frequently attributed to Albert Einstein: "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."

Mackay's Moral: When the world says, "Give up," hope whispers, "Try again."