Hope rising.

Today's post is on a concept.

I've done love, although quite incompletely. Anyways, today's concept is hope.

What does hope mean?

1. To expect and desire
2. To look forward to with confidence or expectation

I took those two definitions off the web, felt that they came closest to defining hope.

Here's what wikipedia had to say:

Hope is an emotional belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances within one's personal life. Hope implies a certain amount of perseverance —ie. believing that a positive outcome is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary.

Hope is more emotional and less intellectual than optimism, which refers to a positive attitude based in rationality. But hope and optimism both can be based in unrealistic belief, or fantasy.

I quite liked the above description as well. But for reasons entirely different to what you might expect.

What examples of hope do we have nowadays? Hope of good grades? A good career? Man Utd winning the Premiership AND Champions League (not an unfounded hope by the way :P) ? Hope that the game we're playing later doesn't get rained off?

Let's see whether this fits our wiki-criteria above. Are they positive outcomes? Definitely. Do they imply a certain amount of perseverance? Yes. We have contrary evidence such as a lack of preparation, a lack of certainty.

Yet let's take a look at the definitions before that. Do we expect and desire the above? Duh. That's what hope is.

Isn't it?

'To look forward to with confidence and expectation'. Note that there is certainty implied here. So really the hope we had above is wishful thinking, because we are definitely not 100% certain.

Yet does hope become irrelevant when we are 100% certain of the outcome?

No.

Let's go back to the wiki definition. Hope is an emotional belief. Note the word belief. It means that for hope to exist, we have got to believe in something. Hope is what we emotionally derived from that belief. Let's go to the second part of the definition, the implication of perseverance, a positive outcome that is possible despite evidence to the contrary. This is where the wiki definition starts dying out. When we place our hope in something, and that something is only possible, then well your hope is possibly false hope.

So now we're looking for true hope. And this is where the wiki-definition completely dies. "Hope is less intellectual than optimism, which refers to a positive attitude based in rationality". I couldn't disagree more. The fact that hope isn't intellectual, isn't rational is shallow thinking.

The thought of man who can never find the eternal hope.

As such all hope is fleeting to man. And this is where the difference between false hope and true hope lies. For hope to be true, it has to be done in the confidence that the expected outcome WILL take place. Otherwise, hope is falsely placed, without rationality. False hope.


So having gone some way to define what hope REALLY is, we return to the question: Is hope irrelevant when we are 100% certain of the outcome?

Again, I repeat the answer no. Because hope is not only the belief, it's also the emotional belief. It's the strength given to you when you believe that something is definitely going to happen. The only issue is when. And hope sustains you between now and 'when'. Hope is what helps you persevere. Hope describes the wait.

Hope that is transient, hope that is false carries us through the ocean that is life, from reef to reef. A temporary bright spot in an otherwise bleak outcome. Until we arrive at that eternal hope, the belief that land is just beyond the horizon, and no matter where the ship takes you, you will reach there eventually.

So even if I did not make sense above, here's the wrap up. (For people who always come straight to this last paragraph, please do at least read the paragraph above this) Find what your hope is in. Find that 100% source of hope. The eternal hope that never ceases. And having put your hope in something that is true, cling on to it. Cling on to the belief and the hope that gives you. And hold out. Because a greater hope will come.

Lol.

I sound so dark and moody in my posts. Haha. But I do want to say that contrary to that, I'm actually quite a happy person. Because of the hope that I have in my life. I am free to dance along the waves, through the calm and through the storm, because I am already assured that all this is temporary, a journey to the eternal promise of a better life.


"We have already won!" - We Win! by David Crowder Band