What does this word mean?
Those who love and those who hate…hope
Those who succeed and those who fail…hope
Every human being who has any shred of desire to survive… will only survive by hope.
This is indeed, a distinctively human trait. Other creatures cannot conceptualize such notion.
When you are happy, you hope that your happiness will last, and when you are miserable, you hope that better days would follow. If you have everything you need and want at your fingertips, you hope that that would never change, and if you are greedy, you may even hope for more, yet if you have nothing, or even lost everything, you hope that your loss would be temporary and eventually you shall receive and enjoy everything you…hoped.
It seems that hope is like a magnificent daydream. You control the directions of events, the environment and the cast in order to reach the precise conclusion you desire. However, hope is more than that… it is the substance that gives human life coherence.
What is a student with no hope of success…
What is a scientist with no hope of new discovery…
What is a farmer with no hope of a bountiful crop…
What is a human being who has no hope of a better tomorrow…
In fact, the absence of hope is the profound meaning of hell. That is why, no matter how bleak the world around may be, there is always hope that it will change…how and when, is immaterial…because it may change after what feels like eternity, or it may change in a blink of an eye. Moreover, it always changes in ways you never anticipate or imagine.
Nonetheless, hope is problematic…
Human beings are not identical in their characters, their skills or their hopes. More often than not, the hopes of one will conflict bitterly with the hopes of another, like the generals on opposing sides of the field at war… or even like the mother whose utmost hope is to see her son graduate to be a physician, while that same son’s utmost hope is to be a musician or a ball player. This is reason enough to temper our hopes with a good measure of intellect. Many people, who failed to do that, ended up living their daydreams in confined places.
Now, did you ever stop for a moment to think…what is it exactly do I hope to accomplish?
Do you have a clear vision of a certain destination for your life’s journey?
Unfortunately, most people have hopes…many hopes…but they cannot clearly decide which one of these aspirations should take the top spot in their priorities. This inevitably leads to squandering much of their energy chasing mirages, which appear at the time to be reachable goals, only to fizzle gradually leading to heartbreak and disappointment. Others are tormented by many different expectations, which end up pulling them in so many different directions, and at the end, they leave it all half way unaccomplished and unfulfilled.
You see, hope is not the same as fantasy. Hope is weighted by confidence… in other words; hope is the integral core of faith, while fantasy is just an escape channel, which allows the imagination to soar into a world separated from a painful or hateful reality. When people confuse these two diverse energies, the result is catastrophic. A small dose of fantasy now and then, is useful for obvious reasons. Fantasy can be an excellent tool of creativity for the composers and painters and all kinds of arts. Yet, unlike fantasy, hope is a foundational way of life.
The most wonderful thing about hope is that it is infectious… and teachable!
When someone is wallowing in the bottom of despair, you can reach out to that person, pull him out of that hellish pit and as you do, an electrifying surge of hope has the potential to bring that person back to life. It is almost like raising someone from the dead… That is probably what the Lord Jesus Christ meant when He said, “anyone who believes in me will do the things I do…”
On the other hand, every parent, every teacher and every servant should be able to teach their children the basic means of survival in what circumstances and challenges they may come across. Of course, the main element in this plan is a life of steadfast hope. We just have to be mindful that the only way to teach others about hope is to actually practice what we preach and lead by example. Like everything else, do what I say and not what I do, is a principle that is almost always sure to backfire.
Hope exists in a world of uncertainty. If you were sure of things to come or events to take place, there would be no room for hope. Only when you cannot see the outcome… and wait anxiously for the events to unfold… that is when you will hope… for a much-awaited result. Disappointments will strike time and again, but that should only elevate the threshold and strengthen your resolve… to keep up your hopes for a better day…, which eventually comes with a bigger and better measure of triumph. If you surrender your hopes to the unavoidable disappointments along the way, you shall be certain to lose, and your struggle will be in vain. Remember, defeat begins at the point of despair.
It goes without saying, that it is certainly a good practice to commune with those who will enrich your life with a constant healthy dose of hope, just as much as it is imperative to avoid the company of those who would drain your energy, sap your hopes, and drag you down to their own swamp of despondency. You may only approach that latter kind of people, if you have enough reserves of love, faith … and hope for both of you.