Hope. Is it just another four letter word?
What does it actually provide for us? I have been thinking about this for a bit and I am not sure that I can grasp that there is hope. I mean what is hope? I think that it is the belief that things will get better. So, if you do not believe that things will get better you are hopeless?
What if things are already going good? or even great? Are you hopeless if you don’t things can get better? Take the last couple of days. They have been getting better and better each day. I was really looking forward to getting up in the morning and now tonight. I know I won’t sleep and tomorrow will be rough. So is the hope of things helping or hurting. I keep hoping things will get better and as the start to I get really excited just to be thrown down and stomped on. Is this what hope is?
I have been thinking about hope in my situation. Do I want things to get better? Yes, I want my relationship with my wife to get better. I want my marriage to be stronger. I want the belief in myself to get more concrete. Are these things better? I think they are, but does that mean I have hope that they will get better? Not really.
These things are all wants. I also want a million dollars but I have no hope that I will get that either. No, what I want is perseverance. I want to continue to fight and struggle even when things are not going well. I don’t have to hope that things will get better to continue to fight to make them better. Maybe they never will, but if I try then I feel like I still may have won. Maybe the fight will only keep me from getting worse. Maybe this miserable existence is all the good things I will have in life but I have to fight just to keep it at this level.
What I think the notion of hope does is allows for the existence of despair. If you believe in hope and that belief falters then all you have left is despair. The notion that things are bad and can only get worse. It is the balance that is needed in life. That is why I think perseverance is better than hope because you are in the drivers seat with perseverance. If you stop trying, stop working then what you have is failure. But it is all centered around you. You have the ability to make it into perseverance or failure. If you keep working and trying, even if you don’t get exactly where you want at least you know you tried to do the best you can. And this effort, the perseverance in the face of adversity can keep driving you forward. Just keep trying and trying.
So, am I hopeful that things will get better? No, but I am dedicated to make sure they do and I will work until they are because that is better than hope.
I mentioned the concert the other night. My wife got us tickets to go see two bands I really like. I know she did not know who the first was but she liked the second one. This was extremely trying on both of us and I am not exactly sure why she wanted to do it. I really did not want to go. I knew how I was going to feel when I got there. Concerts are a huge trigger for both of us and my wife is not a big fan of them. This is why the whole thing surprised me. But she really was excited about doing it so I went.
We got there a little late so the first band I liked was on. We had pretty decent seats and were able to be away from most everyone else but still see and hear great. It did not take long for both of us to start having a hard time. I could not help but keep watching for her to materialize out of no where with her new man. Did I really think she would be there? No, but I was terrified that she would. It put me on edge all night. I kept it under wraps and made the night as good as possible. We went to get drinks and my wife lost her phone and the night just kept going. Did I hope the night would get better? Nope, I just wanted it to end. So I tried to make the best of it and persevere through it all. The good news is we both confronted a trigger and made it out the other side. Will that one always be a trigger? Yip and I have free tickets for a year. What a great year it could have been, but now it is just full of pain and heartache.
So what really is hope?
Heartache
Ominous
Pain
Emptiness
And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. – Dr. Seuss
Surviving the affair....the cheaters perspective 
Hold
On
Pain
Ends
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I believe in hope, and I believe that it makes all the difference in the world. To me hope is a fairly intangible thing, but it’s an energy. It’s a sense of positivity, and a belief that things “can” improve.
To me it’s a key to perseverance. You still need to put in effort, as simply hoping without enacting action will accomplish nothing. But on the flipside, if you don’t actually believe that things can improve, then that undermines your effort at a subconscious level.
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I think it is good to want things to be better for you and your family but I think the real silver lining here is that you have free tickets. Sell them if you don’t enjoy going. Turn adversity into advantage. Use the money to do something you do enjoy with your wife like the fair. Bumper cars could be very therapeutic and the kids would have fun too.
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I wish is was that easy. I have vip credentials that I am the only one who can only use. They have my name on them and they check my ID every time.
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the notion of hope does is allows for the existence of despair.
This rings so true for me and makes so much sense.
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