Hope.

“This topic has been inspired by a quotation that my cousin Shankar sent me.

“Hope is a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t.
 
Hope is not a prognostication—it’s an orientation of the spirit. You can’t delegate it to anyone else.
 
Hope in it’s deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy when things are going well, or the willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather a determination to struggle for something to succeed.
 
Hope is definitely NOT the same as optimism. It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

And, as it happens so often for me,  almost immediately after I read that,  I answered a quiz which guaranteed that it could describe me in six words and this is what it said.”

“Always happiest with the bare minimum.”

It went on further and elaborated thus:

“You are the definition of a survivor. You are patient, calm, and strong. Most importantly, you’re hopeful. You are the friend who can look at a problem and see the light at the end of the tunnel. It takes someone very special to see the single shining star in a dark and cloudy sky – but you can do it almost effortlessly!”

At this stage of my life, I am hopeful about just two things.

A peaceful death without any trouble for myself and others around me; and a  life till then without any trouble for my basic needs.

17 thoughts on “Hope.”

  1. The trouble with hope is that it’s often a substitute for effective action. Someone will say they have hope for a future without wars, or hope for better health, but that hope is meaningless without some action to bring those things about. But I agree hope isn’t the same as optimism. After all, you can hope for something negative – for someone to come to a sticky end, or for a goody-goody to be caught with his hands in the till.
    nick recently posted..In my dreams

  2. “Always happiest with the bare minimum.”
    I would say that applies to me as well. with one horrible exception.
    this was an important post to me. as one of our mutual dear friends recently told me . . .
    (and I’m paraphrasing) I enjoy using 2000 words when 200 or less would do!
    he’s right! I am probably the ONLY student who never groaned when the teacher said we must write a 2000 word theme.
    I tried to take the quiz but balked at becoming a member or whatever. so couldn’t see it. that’s ok. your post has still given me great food for thought.
    uh oh. I feel the theme expanding here. time to give it the bare (almost) minimum.
    so over and out.
    signed … another hopeful.
    xo snoopy hug (not counted as words)

  3. I agree with Nick. Hope can be futile without an action plan, whether self-involved or more global/local.

    Hope is also fragile. Some days can be quite hopeful, a small political change, a more vocal protest, a niggling question/challenge solved.

    Other days the opposite can kick in: despair: climate change, racism, nationalism.

    XO
    WWW

    1. I wish that I had your diction. Hope is also fragile is a beautiful statement with such power behind it that another post can be written only on that theme. And, yes, it can be volatile too.

  4. I don’t know. perhaps hope has more to do with optimism than one would think.
    I used to hope.
    as in Pope’s “hope springs eternal in the human breast…”
    or she “hoped against hope that he would be cured”
    I don’t think I hope so much about anything anymore. hope died.
    and I gave it a calm and peaceful burial. what that says I do not know.
    apparently a 2000 word theme wasn’t enough. had to come back and blab even more.
    I dislike this little comment box. it’s misleading. or at least it should stop you at a certain point.

  5. Hope can sometimes be all there is — no way to act — except in the mind. I say this predicated on words I’ve read Holacaust survivors used to describe their lives in Nazi concentration camps during WWII. No doubt there may be powerless others living today who have nothing but hope between their life and death.

    Don Juan In Hell for which I was once an Asst. Director comes to mind, and the sign we posted above the theatre entrance door, “Give Up All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here”, or could have been “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here” from Dante’s Inferno.

    Does hope spring eternal, as the saying goes?

  6. Like tammy j I wanted to take the quiz, but hesitate to submit my email to join yet another website, which will surely badger me with requests! Maybe not, but I’m more cautious now! Maybe I’m a little short of hope, as in “I’m submitting my email, and I hope they won’t badger me with requests”!

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