SELF-HELP GUIDE TO HOPE

‘Where there is a will there is a way’

An ancient proverb that has its roots dipped in the tree of psychological knowledge. It is a living breathing proof of Snyder’s hope theory which claims that hope is the ability to engage in positive goal-directed thinking comprised of two related components: agency and pathways more commonly referred to as willpower and way power.

Such is the power of hope, that it is the single most thing that has helped us to endure, to survive, to persevere even in the face of the bitterest realities and harshest adversities. When one’s sense of achievement and esteem is lost to the mundane catastrophes, one must surrender to the light at the end of the tunnel, the light of hope.

To hope under the most extreme occurrences is in itself an act of open defiance against pain and suffering. It permits a person the power and strength to live life on his/her own terms. Hope is always accompanied by her children, faith, and belief.

It stands for the belief that circumstances will change if not improve. It’s not wishful thinking about a better future or an exceptional life but rather the actual belief coupled with the knowledge that things will get better, no matter how big or small.

Hope allows us to look at life like it’s a bed of roses and makes us appreciate and value it and rise above the pricking thorns. It’s what gives us a purpose, a reason to go on even when we find ourselves completely alone and isolated from the rest of the world.

When Hope embraces man with her warm nurturing fingers, a man who has lost everything, his home, his job, his health, his wealth, his family, he too begins to believe in his power to rise from these ashes of distress and turmoil like a phoenix born out of the fire.

Belief the cardinal component of hope helps block pain by releasing the brain’s endorphins, the happy hormones, which is the body’s way of diminishing the perception of pain.

One way to not let hope slip away through one’s finger-like grains of sand is human connection. Humans are social beings, we have been given the ability to communicate, to emote, to express ourselves. In our times of strife and suffering, it is this inherent capacity of humanity that enables one to dream of hope again.

That being said one must learn to distinguish between appropriate hope and the so-called false or unrealistic hope. Hope can only be false when based on ignorance.

Groopman delineates false hope from true hope by stating that false hope does not recognize dangers and risks in the way that true hope does. Within the concept of hope lies a paradoxical undercurrent.

As man has come to observe hope as something both positive and negative, divine and secular, interpersonal and individual, inherent yet acquired, objective but subjective, a practice and a possession, an emotion couples with a cognition, true, false, enduring, transitory and inspired.

The ‘optimal margin of illusion’ provided by hope helps one not succumb to devastating circumstances. Hope is the desire for something fused with anticipation of it happening. This conjoining of wariness and defiance, of ‘hoping against hope’, is at the heart of what it means to be hopeful.

On the other end of the hope, continuum lies fear. It is the desire for something not to occur conjoined with anticipation of it happening. On the two sides of the same coin, fear and hope are like the yin and yang of life. It is proof that everything in the universe, both permanent and temporary, exists in opposition. Thus, to hope is to eradicate fear, while to be afraid is to eradicate hope.

Hope may be painful at times due to the absence of a sense of surety of the desired circumstance. This is why false hope prolongs our torment, leading to inevitable disappointment, anxiety, guilt, regret, and rage while realistic or reasonable hopes are more likely to lift our spirits up and help us march victoriously against the challenges of life.

It is the only way we can help ourselves, thus rising above our id and ego, into a realm of being at one with the universe, and surrendering ourselves at his mercy yet simultaneously not giving up on reality either. It is said to be such a powerful tool of the mind, body, and soul that if packaged and dispensed, it would be ten-folds more effective than all the anti-depressants on the planet.

A naturally built medicine or placebo to ease our pain and strengthen our will to survive and succeed.

Advancement in science has led man to live a longer, healthier life. We have now gained the technology to treat illnesses and disorders that were thought to be devastatingly fatal just a few decades ago. However, this progress appears worthless and helpless when it is faced with hopelessness.

The doctor can only alter and mend so much in a human but the hope is an emotion that springs from the heart, not the brain. Hope lays dormant until its strength is beckoned, supplying a sheer belief that one will overcome any and every hurdle that comes along this beautiful journey. Sometimes hope looks so bleak in a given situation as to seem non-existent, yet is so vital for survival, that virtually everyone who survives a life-threatening ordeal will point to hope as one of the most essential things that got them through. It is the one element that differentiates a victim from a survivor. Instead of being consumed by our pain, welcoming fear, and denying hope and positivity into our lives, we must learn to grow, heal, fight and display resilience. The overt change of circumstance stems from the covert change of the mindset within.

When everything else seems to fail, we must remember that we are a part of a greater scheme of events, of starts and constellations, of the entire cosmos. That is a reason to go on, never give up, and it has nothing to do with just you, yet everything to do with you.

Love is the one ingredient that binds hope into the very heart and soul of this universe, and often, that alone is enough to make all the difference in the world. You are enough to make all the difference in the world.