That is the question.
Hope: the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will
turn out for the best.
Hope comes in a lot of shapes and forms. Hope can be your dreams and aspirations. Hope can be plans or ideas. Regardless of how well thought through your plans are – regardless of how scheduled out and detailed they are – life is so unpredictable that you still kind of end up hoping things will work out. Math may never be wrong, but humans often are, so I’m sure even engineers hope that their rocket will launch.
So, what do I put my hope in? I guess I put my hope in others. I hope we’ll treat each other with kindness, I hope that we will do the right things when we can, I hope that we elect people who will make good choices, and I hope that if we treat the world well, it will treat us well back (although, we aren’t treating the world very well right now). I also hope that I can achieve the things I want to achieve and if I work hard, I have a higher chance of succeeding (or so I hope).
But what about giving up? What about letting go of hope? There is so
much emphasis put on achieving your aspirations and your goals and to never
stop trying. People don't often talk about how it's okay to give up. Some
things are not worth working towards, some things are not worth holding on to,
especially not if our mental or physical wellbeing is suffering while we're
hoping for things.
It's a fine line to tread though.
I don't like giving up, especially on the things that
matter most to me. I will hold out and work for something I want for as long as possible until
I know it isn't going to happen, and not for a lack of trying (I'll get into
that in a bit). Hope has dangerous side effects; there's
always a little fear that tags along with it. Fear that you won't succeed,
fear that the thing you want won't happen, fear that hope won't be enough.
That fear can be a great motivator to keep working at something, but at some
point, you have to stop hoping. Not altogether, just for some things.
For instance: I hope that the people I love, love me back, and I know that showing them that I do can help, but I can't make anyone feel things.
People's feelings are not in my control. This was basically a long-winded way of getting to that point. I like being able to control things, but this is something I will never have control over, no matter how much hoping I do.
I think that's one of the hardest things for me to grapple with: I can't
hope things into existence, not those kinds of things anyway. I can do my best
to make sure people around me know how much I care about them, but I can't make
them care about me too. I can only hope that they will, and if they don't — and perhaps never will — then I have to let go of that hope, right? Otherwise,
I am left hoping for an impossibility. It almost hurts more to hope than it is
to let go.
Definitely easier said than done. I think the instinct, at least for me,
is to hold on to what little scraps of hope are left. If it's there, I'll find
it. I will catch it in the air, hold it in my hands, and tell that little speck of hope that I am not letting it go. But at some point, I will have to. This is what I was referring to when I said I hold onto hope until I know
what I want to happen isn't going to. It's not always up to me to determine
whether what I want will happen. Sometimes it's in someone else's hands. And
sometimes, it's best not to hold onto hope when it's begging to be released.
Not everything you hope for (and work for) will happen. This isn't to
say you shouldn't hope for things. Always have hope. Hope is what can help you heal and cope and understand how wonderful life is. I just think it's important to realise that it's okay
to stop hoping for some things too.
It's okay to let go and find something new to hope for.
Comments
Post a Comment