Most people make their hope an albatross. They look at the world, see its problems and rationalize solutions to the symptoms of those problems. They then hope for some divine guidance or fortuitous circumstance net to make their solutions work. They will be waiting forever, weighed down by a hope that is more an obligation not to hope.
I rediscover hope periodically, often daily. Hope for me is the thought than an answer can be found when previous solutions didn’t work. Hope is the ability to get beyond the confusing mess of hopelessness, and to find a better road less traveled. My hope is not begging for intervention in things I can’t change. It’s finding new things on which to enact my creativity, strength, will and joy.
In other words, there will always be problems on earth and they will never be solved.
Poverty will always exist. Stupidity will always exist. So will criminality, alcoholism, drug addiction, incest, hate, incompetence and failure. We can either spend our time obsessing over the negative, or we can choose to explore new future roads elsewhere. That is hope for people who really want it to come about.
Cognitive dissonance is an evil trap of human psychology. If you want to make the stress of life go away, and turn your back on the possibility of those roads less traveled, what you need is a lead anvil made of dead hopes. If you want to let go of the failed, and reach toward the stars, what you need is a hope that disconnects itself from those failings.
In this hope, I believe art of the insightful nature is more important than the lamentations of “realist” writers. I believe that space exploration is more valuable than disaster relief programs. I believe that having one human reach heights of excellence is more important than trying to save others from themselves. We need to keep looking upward and aiming high, or we all fall into this lifeless addiction of leaden hopes.