Pathwalking 99
Don’t ever give up hope.
I could spout all sorts of platitudes and ideas and clichés on this topic, but that gets old and worn fast. Hope, for its own sake, is a belief, an emotion that is sustenance for the soul.
Hope is this strange, obscure tenet that is tremendously misunderstood. It is often held to simply be that intangible something to be clung to, something worth living for, something not to be let go of. But it is far, far more than that.
Hope can mean achievement. It can mean belief. It can mean faith. Hope can be promise. Optimism. Desire. Hope can be the essence of any goal laid out before you.
Some people, though, will turn hope around, and view it instead as foolishness. As the unreachable dream. As a last thread before the fall into darkness and despair, weakness to be exploited and ultimately obliterated.
Don’t ever give up hope.
Hope is that feeling at the bottom of your chest, that sensation that you can overcome whatever obstacle you are faced with. Hope is the ultimate empowerment, the means along the way that might lead you to the desired ends. Hope is not foolish, not childish, not a mistake – hope is a real, deep-seated emotion.
Pathwalking can sometimes feel hopeless. When you are blazing your own trail, making your own way in the universe, there are times when you just feel lost. There are days when it feels as if everything is for naught, and that all your effort is meaningless and pointless.
This is a normal thing. Even people not walking their own path in life have days like this. It’s part of the human condition. We don’t get to simply coast along, and experience life like a movie, with a set script and known points of conflict, contention and resolution. The unexpected is a frequent and regular visitor.
And this is why hope is so very important. Because no matter how bad things get, no matter how awful your day, your week, your month, your year or your lifetime may seem, hope lives. Hope is a positive force that will be the bridge between the good times and the bad.
Don’t ever give up hope
Life is meant to be abundant. We are all striving to find happiness. What makes me happy is not necessarily what makes you or anyone else happy. Happiness sometimes comes in small doses, and sometimes it comes in grander, longer lasting measures. But as I have written many times before, it is happiness that we strive for in our lives.
Happiness may be contentment with your friends, your job, your lovers. Happiness may be that first ice cream cone of the summer. Happiness might be that movie you can watch over and over and over again and never tire of. Happiness might be the time you spend with the people you love the most.
Trouble is, we cannot always be happy. To some degree, this is because to know and feel happy, you have to know and feel sad. To know and feel pleasure, you have to know and feel pain. To know and feel abundance, you need to know and feel lack.
Then there is hope. Because there is, for every action an equal and opposite reaction, there is hope. If you are in poverty, there is hope that you can acquire wealth. If you are alone, there is hope for companionship. If you are feeling sad, there is hope for something to make you happy. If you are lost, there is hope you will be found.
That is why hope is not hopeless. That is why no matter how bad things may appear, we should not give up hope. Because we can swing between the extremes, and make choices to live consciously, we can start with hope and take action to better our situation.
If, as Yoda stated, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering”, then the converse of that must be that Hope leads to contentment, contentment leads to love, love leads to happiness.
The next time you feel hopeless, take this into consideration. Every day is not the same, every day has new potential, new possibility, new realities. And Pathwalking is about making a choice for how to face your days.
Don’t ever give up hope.
This is the ninety-ninth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Thank you for joining me.
The first year of Pathwalking is available in print and for your Kindle.
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