Hope is one of the hardest things to have these days but at the end of the day it’s all we have, nothing in this life is guaranteed accept dying and hoping.
We are born and we die, but in between there is this story, this adventure, that takes all different leads and roundabouts and almost all of the time, we need to have hope.
There are many thoughts and emotions in the human body but hope is probably one of the most powerful, because it allows us to trust, trust in the potential for something to get better.
It’s also about trusting yourself, hoping for a better future and trusting yourself that you will help yourself do that and look after yourself so that you can do that.
Just living your life is an act of hope, because if we don’t have hope then we have given up, and if we’ve given up, what’s the point? Every day that you wake up, get out of bed, and start your day, you have hope that things will be ok, that you are going to achieve that goal and that no matter how bad things seem, you’re going to see the light at the end of the tunnel – that’s hope.
Having hope is being brave…
It’s no secret that today’s world is full of despair, which is the opposite of hope. The planet is dying, suicide rates are staggeringly high, the refugee crisis is shameful, sexual violence is incredibly prominent and discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community is happening more and more. And these are only a few issues that make the world feel sickeningly hopeless. But we are still here, fighting, despite it all. Why? We have hope that things will get better, that we’ll continue to make progress and advocate for human rights for everyone, that the world will one day be an equal and safe place for all.
We have to hope that, because if we don’t and we just accept how things are, two things would happen. One, Individually, people would begin to feel heavy, alone and hopeless which in turn would have a grave impact on not only themselves but everything around them and two, we would never progress, we would never see change in the world, there would be no protests for climate change or equal rights. The world would stay, stuck, how it is now, and I’m not sure anyone wants that.
I know what you’re thinking. How do we have hope in a world like this? And you’re right, it’s a vicious cycle of trying to be hopeful and facing adversity so feeling hopeless and knowing that the only way you lift yourself out is having hope for the future, but it’s that feeling you just cant get to.
Hope can make us feel excited about the future, but most of the time, it’s not comfortable or easy. It’s never as simple as just ‘hoping’ and that’s you ready to go. It takes effort, time, risk and a whole lot of bravery because hoping for better, for change, for something that you can’t see, that’s scary. That’s the stuff of nightmares I would say but it is also especially brave and it takes an abundance of courage.
In the dictionary if you look up hope, you will find words like ‘anticipation’ and ‘expectation’ but these words don’t accurately define hope. Having hope isn’t always tied to one specific outcome and it doesn’t depend on the certainty of getting what you want either. It is simply the belief that something good is going to come or has the potential to happen.
Having hope is powerful. It allows us to heal from those dark moments in our lives, that little whisper in your ear that says, “things will get better”. We all deserve to feel empowered, and sometimes, more often than not, the world makes us feel small. Hope gives you the power to believe In yourself, to know that you already have everything inside of you that you need to be the best version of you.
Hope will never take away the pain and suffering, but the more you nurture your feelings of hope the more they will grow and it’s contagious because people love feeling hopeful, believing that the world will get better. Hope doesn’t fix anything but it sure will give you what you need to fix it yourself.
Feature image credit: hopegrows.net
You must log in to post a comment.