Hope is fickle

Hope is fickle.

I’m not saying it’s pointless, just fickle. It changes according to us, our situations and our feelings. But then, how can hope be seen as a source of strength? It is often debated that hope is not a source of strength but distraction. It can be both for as we have already said, hope is fickle. It inspires and motivates us in times of despair but it also distracts us in times focused situations. It snatches our focus and aims it towards possibilities rather than probabilities.

Even then, why can’t people survive without it? Someone once said, “Man can live for forty days without food, three days without water, eight minutes without air, but not even a second without hope”.

This proves that keeping hope alive in our hearts is like fuelling a fire with wood. The outcome of both is that it keeps you warm and safe. Hope is like the feeling that you’ll survive when you’re in a car crash even when you’ve bled out your whole supply. It is like when you see the first ray of light after weeks of gloom, like the light at the end of a tunnel. It does not mean that you’ll survive or bathe in the ray of light or actually reach the light at the end of the tunnel. It just means that even in the face of death, you are defying it. Even when death is sneering at you, slowly drawing its scythe across your throat, you are defying the actual possibility of it.

The feeling we get when our hope dies out is one you never want to feel. It’s like all the light has been drained from you, like there is no other possibility than the one already written in the book beforehand. It’s like when you put your hand in a snake pit, it always bites back.

Hope is necessary for survival, but delusion is not. Hope helps you face life but disillusions just sidetrack you, making you believe in something that is entirely impossible.

Hope sidetracks, but also saves. It sugar-coats reality but keeps us alive. A man without hope is like a ship with no compass. The ship can’t navigate without a compass and a man has no sense of direction without hope.