There are a few words and expressions I actively watch out for in my day-to-day. “You should really just…” I have developed an active allergy towards. But that’s for another time. The other phrase I make a concerted effort to avoid is “I hope…”. I don’t mind casually throwing it here and there as an opening line in a work email, but in my private life I cringe whenever I catch myself hoping. For myself and for others.
Enough hardships have presented themselves to me and to my loved ones to call on hope. I am definitely not a productivity hack type of person; I don’t have all the answers and I too throw my hands up in the air, every now and then. However, I have yet to go to bed hoping that they would call, that she will get healthy, or that he will turn his life around. Instead, as much as it eats away at me in the moment, I pick up the phone, again. I listen to all the daily news because, well, at least there are still news to listen to and to go off of. And I go on hour long walks where I convince myself that I must let go of what is not mine.
Perhaps those are all forms of practicing hope. I don’t deny never having felt it. Or maybe it’s the way I understand hope that makes me approach it so categorically. On a very base level, hope propels the actions I exemplified above. It’s the conditio sine qua non for everything that follows. If I walked any of those situations back far enough, I would discover their origin to reside in my desire for a specific outcome. And when the desire is strong enough, an action plan is put in motion which will (nomen omen) hopefully bring the outcome closer, if not make it entirely complete.
Referencing Latin proverbs seems to be going well for me here, so let me wrap up with another one. Just like I think, therefore I am, I believe I just discovered that I fundamentally hope, therefore I do. One cannot exist without the other. You may find it funny, but I am literally stunned at how true this reads to me now. And how vulnerable it makes me feel. After all, is there anything more human(e) than connecting with your needs and putting in the work to help them transpire?