Hope (Answers to Random Weekend Thoughts, Part 2)

Hi Spidey-fans! Welcome back from wherever you were before you got back here.

If you’ve followed my journey from the beginning of the blog (and those of you just tuning in, you have a lot of catching up to do), then you know I have grappled with some pretty deeps topics (love, evil, losing my cousin to suicide, faith, lonliness, friendship, family, etc.). Today’s post is no different as I try to get a hold on the amorphous concept of hope. (And hopefully, I’ll be able to keep it brief.)

Question #3 from Deep Weekend Thoughts was:

Is hope real, or is it just denial candy-coated?

-The genesis of this question comes from having my beliefs about hope rattled after an argument. The person I was arguing with said that they didn’t believe in hope, that it was denial candy-coated. “You hope tomorrow will be a better day, but deep down you know it won’t be. It never is.” We argued back and forth, but didn’t come to a resolution unfortunately.

What shook me up so much is that if this person’s statement is true, then there is no point in my life. I might as well end it now. Now, I don’t want to get you all scared, but it is confession time. I lied a little in my post about my cousin’s suicide. I wrote “I can't imagine living with that kind of inner pain that he felt for close to two decades. Heck, after a year and a half of carpal tunnel syndrome I said, "If I feel this shitty in 6 months, I'm killing myself." Ok, that was a lie.

I do know what it is like to live with an inner pain for 20 years. There is a wound on my heart that never heals, a scar that never stops bleeding, that I hide from everyone. (This probably comes as a surprise to those who have known me a long time.) And believe me I have tried everything under the sun, with the exception of drugs, to stop that pain. There have been many a day that I have prayed for death. Nothing has worked. . .with the exception of taking life one day at a time and living with hope. (And I don’t think drugs are going to do it either.)

I am not going into the nature of the origin of that pain because hey, we all have our own crosses to bear. But I will share that everyday is a choice for me. A choice to live and not die, a choice to seek peace and happiness, a choice to actively focus on the good. (And if you are not actively choosing that which brings life, you are passively choosing death.) Am I always successful? Of course not. I still have bad days now and then, but that is ok. I used to have bad years.

So this is why the notion that there may not be hope was so shaking for me. Because I feel that Hope is like Love, one of those concepts that has to exist for everyone or else it doesn't exist. (Or like gravity, it is there for everyone.) It made it a bit hard to wake up the following few days after the argument, hence the question. I must say, many of you gave amazingly awesome answers. (Like my aliteration there?)



"Hope is VERY real. Without hope, there would be no happiness in the world." -Robin

“. . . hope is that thrill that no matter how much it's crushed, it still will remain... Some let fear overpower their hope, there is where the trouble lies I think...”
–Leluangel

“Anything is real to a particular person if they believe it. . . However, to someone who is closed minded or hateful, there is no hope because they don't see life that way.” -Win


And again, my sister, Kelly, gave an incredibly deep answer.

“Question, how can hope be denial? Candy-coated or not, hope and denial are two totally opposite aspects of life. And to be totally honest, I’m almost kind of offended that you would even ponder this question. Jim, HOPE is essential to life and someone’s well being. Hope is what keeps people strong and, most of all, alive. How can you candy-coat that!

For example our cousin Gordon, he wasn’t in denial that he would never feel happiness. Denial is knowing that something is really and truly there just not really wanting it or not really wanting to acknowledge that its there. He lost hope that it was there for him and in turn lost his strength to continue to live and work towards getting it so in turn he took his life. Hope is one of the few basic emotions that people forget about that are essential to living. When you get back to living the basics there is no candy-coating anything, it’s plain as day.”

I don’t know if I can write much more that can top that. So I will end with a quote from the movie Shawshank Redemption. See you soon for Part 3.

“Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.” Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption

(If you have any further thoughts on the concept of hope, please leave a comment.)