Hope.

hope (noun, verb) : The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best

There are few things in this world quite as wonderful and simultaneously terrible as hope. Hope is what drives many of us to do better each day. It's what keeps us motivated to persevere through the rougher times and is sometimes our only light in the dark.

Yet at times, hope is what keeps us hanging on to false pretense. Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel ... is a fucking train.

I digress, this weekend, I went to watch a movie centered around a man dressed like a certain flying rodent. In the film, the antagonist had a very powerful line:

“There cannot be true despair, without hope...”

This notion has stuck with me, for days after and continues to rattle around in my brain ... perhaps it's the yin and yang of it all that appeals to my more Asian sensibilities; perhaps it's just the profound concept that sometimes, it really is darkest just before it goes pitch black. Either way, I can't seem to stop hearing it echo in my mind. What does it mean?  

“Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

However, I've never been a good pessimist... quite the opposite in fact. What I garnered from this otherwise villainous sentiment is that though hope might be what makes despair absolutely torturous, it stands to reason that a little bit of despair in life is what reminds you of times when hope is absolutely necessary.  Challenge is what makes us who we are, and the ability to endure is what separates the wheat from the chaff.  In order for us to learn courage, we must be put in a situation that requires it... to learn patience, be denied something that you want.  People will do the right thing, and perhaps the world isn't just full of pain; merely people all going through similar trials and tribulations ultimately trying to soldier through and the pain... is just the aftermath... of growth. I'd like to believe that.

Each day, you read in the news about some horrific injustice... about someone who is unable to deal with life and ends up making terrible decisions... including the most terrible, and conclusive. If only these people were able to find hope amidst their despair.

True, hope can be misleading, uncertain, and will sometimes let you down... 

well I say... 

...let it.

 

If you can, embrace despair as it will make you stronger.  For it is only when you accept disappointment, that you can truly be thankful for what you've received.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. ” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

...make sure your friends know that you care about them, often. Don't be frightened of weakness but rather seek it out and bolster it with confidence and eradicate it with truth.  Read between the lines...

Don't hesitate to ask what's wrong if you even begin to suspect that something is. You may be the hope they're looking for... you could be the rope that they need to save them, or the light to brighten their darkness.

... and if that's the case, I hope that I am strong enough to be.