Hope

Hope, a significant guiding factor of life. Something that if lost you may not try to find it again. The word hope is thrown around a lot in religious, academic, and social settings. We see people teaching it as kindergarteners, presenting on it in Ted Talks, and even exercising it through activities like tarot card readings.  A lot of people have a preconceived idea of what hope is, but in most cases it is more complex. People think hope is looking for the light in all situations, but that is just not sustainable. This definition gives people the false narrative of optimism in everyday life. It is unrealistic for people to be optimistic every day of the week, so most individuals think they lose hope a lot faster and more often than they really do.  

When I was younger my mom used to always pack my lunch. She would add a sandwich, chips, carrots, and sometimes if I was lucky candy. I never knew when I opened my lunch box if I would get candy or not, but I was always hopeful. The sheer idea of possibly getting candy was enough for me to run to my locker and eagerly pry open my lunch box, sometimes before even getting to the lunchroom. As I got older, I could feel my kiddish tendencies slipping away. I no longer ran to my locker for my lunch. I got it in the cafeteria. I didn’t hope for candy because I always knew I was going to get it. There are certain things we forget as we get older, and small hopeful things are one of them.  

We live in a time where hope seems very distant. There is no hope that the pandemic will end anytime soon, no hope that we will ever be done with Zoom, and no hope that Sodexo will cook a good meal. Hope is what you make of it. You can run through life with a negative attitude towards all situations or start to have hope. “Get your hopes up.” I know what it feels like to lose hope, or at least I know the illusion of it.  

Another story I have is from college specifically. Let me paint the picture. It is the beginning of Freshman year. The sun is shining, and I am going into my third week of classes. The overwhelming feeling of papers, mass amounts of reading, and friend drama are weighing on my shoulders. Everywhere I looked I saw massive friend groups laughing and library rooms full of academically inclined students. This was my decline in hope. I lost hope that I would ever find friends or that I would ever do well in classes. I fell into the trap of self-pity. I felt alone—more than ever before.  

I know a lot of others feel the same way, well now I know others have felt this way.  There are a lot of factors contributing to that: COVID-19, the rise in social media, and even teaching styles in schools. I have found that a lot of college kids, specifically freshmen, are lacking in hope. From what I have seen and observed everyone thinks no one else feels the same way they do. That’s not true. Speaking from experience, most people feel the way you do at some point.  

Flash forward 2 months, and I am doing better. I grew from my hardships and had hope. I “got my hopes up.” I have been able to grow and learn from the stereotypical version of hope into a more realistic version. I now see hope as a fluid, ever-changing thing that never really goes away.