Hope

Hope. This feeling is amazingly beautiful. It gets us through each day, we believe everything will be better tomorrow. Hope is like thinking that we can find a sack of gold hiding in between that pile of rubbish outside our house. Hope motivates us to do our best. We WILL beat about our rubbish bin expecting that fat sack of gold. But fret not for even if hope fails us this time, it will come into play right after it decides we're not worthy of the gold. Instantaneously, it tells us that the sack of gold might be there tomorrow, or the day after and maybe one after that. We will then shrug it off and go on living as if despair and loss never existed that day.

Everyone knows that there are two sides to a coin and hope unfortunately, is not exempted.

Hiding behind the beauty of that belief is another side shrouded by ugliness and danger. Viewing the above example realistically, hope is like believing we'll lead a life worth telling our grandsons even when now we're plagued with poverty and loss. Hope forcibly carves a smile on our face when we are in the deep abyss of despair. Hope blinds us with a veil so thick we can't differentiate an elephant from a mouse. Wealth from poverty. Loss from gain.

"Naive" is what I told myself when confronted with hope. Hope leads us to choose ignorance over wisdom. When something is wrong, we tell ourselves that everything will be alright.

"Don't worry, be happy." Bobby McFerrin sings.

Without any qualms, hope opens up doors to a perception of a beautiful life, but it renders us vulnerable to being made a fool. Remember when dad promised you a PS2 if you aced that Maths paper and broke that promise? Remember when your girl promised happiness and she too, broke that promise? Remember when your boss promised you increased wages and he TOO, broke that promise? What happened after that? Let me tell you what happened. Hopes are shattered, fools are born, lies are told, egos bruised.

I see hope as being naive and foolish but yet, I can't live without hope. Neither can you. All of us live hoping for a better tomorrow. Human beings start each of their day full of hope. It's menacingly fascinating, really. Hope provides you with the energy to brave against all odds just to survive to see the day when your hopes are realized. Revolutions didn't start because people thought it's hopeless. Medicines weren't researched because doctors felt hopeless. Ultimately, suicide bombers didn't kill themselves just to say, "Fuck you!" to the Americans. They had hope. A dangerous one. But who are we to judge? Dying for their hope might be the most beautiful thing in their mindset.

Even with this knowledge, how can we overcome this adversity?

Most of us choose to believe that ignorance is bliss. The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. People resist changes because of this. Pain aversion, some call it. Hope causes us to be so dangerously stupid we can just launch a nuclear bomb with our stupidity. People avoid pain in the present at the cost of increased pain in the future.

Being in charge is sometimes painful. Seeing people and things for what they are hurts, especially when they're painted in a negative light. Then again, we have to be wise. Know what's worth fighting for and what's not. Make your calculations, do your maths. Don't invest your hope on useless relationships or businesses. I don't know if you believe in gravity, but when you fall, you hit the ground the same way everyone else does.

This quote has been thrown around endlessly and it's getting a little tiring, but I believe that it is most fitting to end this post with this:

"Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope will drive a man insane.” ~Red to Andy, from the movie,"The Shawshank Redemption"