As aptly put, "Hope is that little voice in your mind which says maybe, when the whole world says no". Hope is a force, it drives things when everything else seems futile. It keeps you awake and alive and clinging on, when even the sanest person around says that its impossible. In a way, hope is responsible for everything that happens around us.
Is hope good? Well, yes and no. To give light to this thought, let us consider certain scenarios. Hope at times makes you do the weirdest things possible. It makes you take the harder path when you can clearly see a more easier and simpler solution just ahead of you. Why you say? Cause you hope that it will still turn out as good, or maybe even better than it seemed possible.
You are playing a game of football (soccer). You are two on one with the keeper, and have your own team mate to your side. From your angle, it seems really impossible to score, but if you lay it off to your team mate, he/ she can easily score the goal. Do you go for the shot anyway? Well, depends on your frame of mind at that point. But if you consider taking a shot, you are audacious in the sense that you hoped that you would score and take the credit/ laurels that come along with it.
At times, I am driving my car, and right ahead of me, there is some slow crappy driver who doesn't get going on traffic lights, drives way too slowly, and is basically just not worth staying behind. What would you do? Honk? That seems like the only good option. Or well, you could always change lanes and overtake him. But what do I choose? I chose to stay behind this car, without honking, giving into the slow and boring ride. Why you ask? Cause I just hoped that maybe that guy is playing a game and will eventually reward the one person who did not honk and stuck behind the irritating ride although there were better options. This thought itself is insane, but then that is how hope gets us going. At the weirdest places, and the most inopportune times.
You own a bunch of stocks. You know that one of your stocks is doing really well. You keep track of it everyday, and then eventually come to a point where you decide well, you are making an unprecedented profit on it, and so you have to sell them. Do you? Well maybe not. Cause as humans, we are hopeful since our birth. We keep promising ourselves, that well, if it reaches 50, I am just going to sell everything. But then it comes to 50, crosses 60, and there you are, still sitting on your stocks, making new promises that you will sell them at 65 next. And its a loop you can't get yourself out of. Same goes with gambling. Its the hope that you will get a full house or 4 of a kind when all the statisticians went hoarse shouting that the probabilities are so so bleak, that you would rather dig up at a place and oil starts pouring out (not that low, but whatever).
Hope however is good too. It makes you not give up. When something bad is going on, you hang on to that slightest possibility that all of this is just a dream, a prank being played by someone, and then everything will be just fine. You know you are screwed, that there is no digging back. But then, how else can you keep yourself going? You have to hope for the best.
You are studying for the exam. You know there is no way you are completing your syllabus in time before the exam. You look at the index, and see that there are 6 main chapters, and then as the days start turning to hours and the hours start turning to minutes, you count the pages and then divide them by the number of hours and so on. All in the hope that you are going to complete everything in time, and then even if something is left behind, the exam will be only on those chapters which you did well. Eventually the exam begins, you start solving and after the exam is done, you start counting the total marks you attempted and count the possible score you might get. You count and recount, hoping against all hopes that the person checking your papers will not heed much and would be in a good mood so that he/ she just gives out marks without reading the answers. You hope that there is some calculation mistake, and that you get more than you even attempted. After all of this, you walk out of the exam hall smiling and with your head held high firmly believing that you will go through unscathed. That is, until the results arrive. :)
Are we good with hope or are we good without hope? I think without hope, we would be just a bunch of sad robots. I believe in hope and I think its important to keep believing in something which drives and pushes us on. Its good to keep believing in the fact that underneath everyone, hidden in a small small corner of the heart, there is goodness and humanity. And even though on the outside, they may behave like animals and freaks, there is that chance, that possibility that maybe, just maybe, they may show up with that good side of theirs. That they might behave in a good way. Which is why we don't let go off people. Which is why we keep believing in them. Which is why there are rehabilitation homes even for the most horrific people. Cause the whole point is in getting that inner good person out. All of us have a good and evil side. But then we choose to be evil with some people with no rhyme or reason. Or at least, we choose not to give a reason. But then without hope, the whole world would turn against each other, cause no one would trust anyone else, no person would forgive or would ever approach someone with a helping hand.
People would no longer love/ like anyone else. So many things keep happening in the world just because people have faith in humanity. People believe in one another with the hope that they are telling the truth. Without this basis, the whole world would come tumbling down. The whole restaurant business works on faith. That you would take a seat, have food, and not walk out without paying. The whole idea of marriage works on hope. That you would love someone, get married, and not walk out when a tiny bit goes wrong. Friendships, relations work on hope. That you would not leave your people at the weirdest times, and that you will be there at any point for them without expecting anything back in return. Is it really about not expecting anything back in return? I guess its more of, you need me now, and in the same way, if I ever do need you, please be there for me. It is like a token you keep passing within yourself, and hope that eventually everything just evens out. Because you don't want to be burdened by someone else's goodwill too.
Hope is a shining light. If you choose to be hopeful, you can keep a smiling face no matter what happens. You keep believing in yourself and eventually that is what is needed to make it in the world. If you lose all your hope, you will cripple and wilt and eventually give up.
Never give up. You never know what tomorrow might bring for you! So keep hoping for the best..
