"The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That's about it..."
- Barbara Kingsolver (American Author, Poet and Social Activist)
These days the newspapers just contain reports of violence, trauma, disaster - well, to sum it all up - just chaos everywhere. Not a single part of the world is spared from suffering and perhaps in extreme cases, hopelessness. If your country isn't undergoing some crisis situation, you can be rest assured a neighbouring country is.
Taking South-east Asia as an example, (ya, cuz I live in it!) as Singapore is moving out of economic slow-down and the resultant crazy unemployment and re-employment rates (yes, that's our version of crisis! refrain: We are living in a material world and I am material girl), our neighbours in Indonesia are suffering from natural disasters and the likes and further east, citizens in Timor-Leste are working their way out of a political stand-still.
So, what happens to the notion of hope then? Does it still play a role in these people's lives? I still hope it does because sometimes, I believe that when all else fails, it's hope that keeps people alive and going. It is the hope that someday things will be better that keeps a young, unemployed single mum from taking her life. It is the same hope that miracles do happen that keeps a cancer patient fighting for his life.
It is also hope that keeps this rather pessimistic young woman from giving up her dream that one day she will enter the roda again and joga Capoeira like she once did not so long ago. The hope that her recovery will be a full one and that she will come back both mentally and physically stronger than before is truly what keeps her going. She hopes that the Capoeira she loves will still leave her breathless and in complete awe when she finally returns. It will take months, maybe a year or two, but she hopes to return to that roda that taught her lessons, so valuable, about Life, about the people she met within and outside of the roda, about herself, about appreciation and gratitude and how most of don't realise we lack these in great quantities, about being thankful and learning to forgive and most of all, about not setting herself limits and learning that everyone is capable of great things if they let themselves go once in a while. Truly beautiful and worth all the hope in the world don't you think? =)
Hope is also the hardest thing to kill, according to my friend and proud intern at a crazy firm that makes him do such important things, it kills me to think about it, Darryl Leong Wei Ge (9733****) [yeah, he wanted me to add his mobile no, but me is NO PIMP-ess, so too bad, Dar) and the only nasty thing that can happen to hope (and these are my words, thank you very much) is, it diminishing and being attributed less importance and priority than it truly deserves.
Ask me, the cynic and pessimist all rolled into one, and I'll tell you. I often catch myself saying these two words, which could cause my death if an extreme positivist, otherwise known as the optimistic optimist, hears me: "No Hope! (usually I say it with lah at the end, making it count as three words, really)" and honestly, especially on a good day like this one, it is humbug. I gather, that in actuality, there is no such thing as having no hope because then it would disparage the beliefs and prayers of millions of people, which is at the same time, stupid as it is cruel. Because at the end of the day, even a pessimist like me, does pray, and for what - but, in hope, of a better tomorrow.
So, as Kingsolver suggests, let us all take a moment (more if you need, no one is going to deprive you of that) to figure out what it is that we truly hope for - whether it is for ourselves, our loved ones, or for the people around us, our friends, neighbours, fellow countrymen, and the people of the world - and let's live IN that hope. Let's believe in that hope, and live every day with purpose such that our hope will be realised someday, not necessarily today or tomorrow, but someday, before we bid our farewells to this blessed world we live in (Man, the pessimist and morbid me just had to creep in eh? darn!).
Am hoping that someday you'll see that hope isn't such a hopeless little thing after all!
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