Posted on: Aug 11, '09
Beautiful hope
Wise men say that one must never lose hope even in times of great crisis.
True, hope is a glorious emotion to feel. It can bring excitement and some form of marvel to life. Hope can be a tremendous motivator.
Often I am able to visualize hope. To me it appears as a beautiful young woman, full of a quiet allure and subtle charms. She has a presence that is calming, soothing and uplifting.
But she can be exceedingly elusive especially when we need her the most. The trick is to keep her humored. Keep her charged. Keep her in your good books always. She can be capricious, especially when she feels that one doesn’t believe in her. She loves those who show trust in her. She comes to their aide and lives inside their heart.
When dark clouds gather on the horizon of life, call her quietly. She will appear by your side while you are sitting near a pond watching the ripples on dark waters. She will come through the gentle night breeze and touch you softly. You will look up and see her standing there. An apparition in white. The moonlight shining on her face, as she will smile at you. Take her to your heart immediately.
Hope is one of the most central ingredients to emotional literacy because it shows us what we really want. It is a life enhancing energy that contains possibility, change, excitement and fulfillment. Sometimes it happens that hope changes into disappointment and despair. Either because what we hoped for did not materialize or did not fulfill us the way we expected it to. If the disappointments are repetitive, it leads to despair and eventually to the loss of hope.
However, to be able to hope again we do need these disappointments and phases of hopelessness. We have to truss our despair and live through these bleak periods of disenchantments in order to feel hope again.
There are times when we become fed up of the roller coaster of emotions, which accompany hope. The dashing hopes make it harder to carry on…
During such times it helps us to remember that ‘hoping against hope’ is not just a phrase; it is a precious life lesson that teaches us how to deal with the anxiety that we are feeling during the discouraging phases.
There is an Urdu phrase that says: “ Umeed par dunia quayam hai.” Meaning, “ This world is standing on the tripod of hope.”
Hope is so essential to life that it is almost impossible not to hope for something and let it carry us through our day to day living. When we plan a picnic or a barbecue we hope that the day remains sunny. We also hope for something to not happen. Such as when we are in love, we hope that our lover won’t leave us.
Why, even the person who is planning to commit suicide is hoping for something. They are hoping that death will be better than life.
Being hopeful is also being courageous. When we begin to hope for something to happen then we are opening ourselves to two difficult possibilities. The first possibility is that it may not happen and we will have to live with the painful consequences and the second possibility is that it may happen and we find that this is not what we really want!
G.F. Watts, a Victorian artist in the 1890s, painted a picture entitled ‘Hope’ that was for some years one of the most famous paintings in the world. It is said that the noted artist Picasso kept a reproduction of it in his studio.
This painting is in subtle shades of blue and mist grey and shows a young girl blindfolded and with her head bowed down. She is sitting on a half visible globe, which is used as a representation of earth. The earth is surrounded by clouds and a hint of the rising foam of sea. She has a lyre in her hand, which has only one unbroken string left on it. The general definition about the blindfold of the girl is that although her plight is hopeless, she refuses to see this and relies on her inner vision. When Watts was asked why he did not call the painting ‘Despair’ he explained: “Despair gives up but Hope, however great the odds against her, never gives up. She is trying to get all the music possible even with only one string left.”
This picture by Watts illustrates a state of affairs, which is apparently hopeless. Things look as difficult as they can be, the ways around the situation are shrouded in a mist and give the impression of being indiscernible and yet, even with slight resources, there is the courage to carry on.
I have visited few shrines here in India, where I have noticed that people tie threads and scraps of clothes on the filigreed walls surrounding the shrine, as they pray to the holy being that they believe in. These colorful pieces of ‘hopes and wishes’ flutter in the gentle breeze, making the wall look like a beautiful arabesque of art. This way the believers offer their hopes and wishes to the divinity and ask them to make it come true. It reminds me of how this world believes so much in- Hope.
For me, hope is the glass half full! It is also an emotion that shows me what I really want to feel. I have discovered that if I understand this and remember to think each time I hope what it is I want, I find some subtle but significant transformations happening in my life.
Hope also indicates to me that I cannot hurry my situation. I have to wait patiently while hoping for changes. I can’t make that door open at my will. But if I wait for it, I will not miss it. Let’s always hope. For the best.
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