Words Explained: Hope

Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of bad habits, coping mechanisms and more including brief mentions of self-harm and suicide. This article is an attempt to bring understanding to a word that represents a certain concept. Because of this, this is an opinion article. As the meaning of these words is subjective, you may have differing opinions. The majority of the statements that you will see are clearly stated as my own. If you have questions in regards to this, please email me at sophiadomingo.inkmagazine@gmail.com. See the formatted article HERE for the citations in footnotes.

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“Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: "expect with confidence" and "to cherish a desire with anticipation."

— Wikipedia

We all know about hope. It’s that feeling that we all know and at least somewhat understand. For many, however, this feeling is unexplainable and explicitly hard to even comprehend. You just know what it feels like. Whether false or naively innocent, hope can lead one to an optimistic and fulfilled outlook on life, or to uncontrollable despair.

To me, hope is the link to our will and determination as a person. When you think about what hope is and the situations you may have felt it, you may realise that it always seems to come in times of desperate or uncomfortable situations. Maybe something along the lines of “this will be better in the future” or “I’ll get through this” as very broad examples.

Hope is the ability to understand and see reality for what it really is. That the things you are currently struggling with will turn out good in the end. Or at least okay. However, this only makes sense if the feeling of hope is ‘true’ or not. False hope, the opposite of true hope, is as if you are seeing reality as something it is not. However, when looking at true hope, you can clearly see that things will turn out in reality, everything is going to be okay.

Your ability to perceive the obstacles that may come your way. That you can clearly see that there is something to look forward to and you aren’t just chasing something that doesn’t exist.

Now, you may be thinking about how this is relevant to how this applies to you. Well, for many people, they either have no hope or are chasing something that they shouldn’t be hoping for.

When you have no hope, it’s as if your determination doesn’t mean anything. No matter how hard you try, the outcome is always the same despairingly true fact of ‘bad bad bad’. That there’s no point in doing something if there is no positive outcome so to reduce the burn, you don’t allow yourself to feel hopeful at all; even if you could be hopeful about something because it’s highly likely to happen with the current reality they live in.

On the other hand, dealing with false hope is like lying to yourself, but you don't know you’re lying to yourself. It’s this constant voice going “it’s okay, it’s going to happen no matter what”, even if in reality it is the complete opposite. The person may be aware that they are experiencing it but, unfortunately, it is something that is hard to stop because it’s already been made a mental habit.

This is the same for having no hope at all, you can’t stop it without an outside perspective. You need someone else to see the real path for you and to help you see it too, even if you are on the painful one you are currently stuck to.

So where we may see hope as this amazing emotion, it can also brutally burn someone. All emotions are the same, however, hope is one of many emotions that are technically good and are seen as good, even if they ruin people's lives.

I ask that you think about a situation where you had hope, but unfortunately, it was taken away because you didn’t see that it wasn’t going to happen and you were so drawn on the fact that the outcome you wanted was so good. Where that may seem super specific if you have never experienced this before, it is something more people can relate to than you may think. It’s pushing yourself to think it’s going to be okay, even though you may or may not know it isn’t.

Now think about a time when you didn’t have hope, but when looking back on it, you could see that you could have had hope in that situation. Where you lied to yourself to keep yourself from feeling the pain but in reality, you just kept it and maybe made it worse. Again, if you have never felt this, this may seem barbaric that someone would feel this way. However, for those of you who can relate to this, it is completely understandable and justified to feel that guilt.

The issue here is honesty. Hope is based on expectations and linked to determination but, most people only see the latter part. Where you may have determination, you have to be honest with yourself about realistic expectations.

You can hope that sleeping only 3 hours or less every single night for months on end is healthy with all your might or pass it off, even if you know it is wrong and you are slowly falling apart because of it.

You can hope that by forcing yourself to be in unhealthy relationships where you force yourself to do things you don't want to do is good when you know it is wrong and you don’t realise that you don’t deserve to be in that position and you are better than that.

You can hope that by restricting yourself to only have a certain amount of calories in a day will give you more control when you know that it’s controlling you and you can’t escape the need for it.

You can hope that washing your hands over and over will finally make you ‘clean’ and make you not ‘dirty’ when you never seem to get to that point and it just seems to be getting worse with time,

You can hope that by hurting yourself physically will take away the guilt and emotional pain, even if you know that it is just a way to punish yourself for ‘being a bad person’ and ‘not being worth it’.

You can hope that by attempting to take your life without meaning to, that you will finally be seen and helped out of all the pain you are in, even though you know, or don’t know, all you need to do is ask.

You can hope that by taking your life and meaning to, the world will be better off without you and you will finally be free from sadness and pain, even if you know, or don’t know, that there is someone in the world that will grieve your death and would have helped you if they had known.

Hope can cause so much pain and suffering, if only we were truly honest with ourselves and could see the whole picture, we wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. If you are dealing with false hope or don’t think you have any hope at all, please talk to someone. It is worth the work to get out of the cycle that you are in and there is a better future for you, even if you don’t see it yet.

In conclusion, hope may sound terrible by now. After reading this article, yes, it may sound that way. But, good hope does exist. As I have said in the beginning, when you think about what hope is and the situations you may have felt it, you may realise that it always seems to come in times of desperate or uncomfortable situations. You may have realised that in that situation, or at least one other situation you may have experienced, you were able to pull yourself out of that situation because you could clearly see the future. That the things you are currently struggling with will turn out good in the end. Or at least okay.

We have to deal with the constant falsehood of the future and the awful present we may or may not be currently in, but, there is a way out. True hope is real and the false hope you may be dealing with now can go away. I know that sounds obvious but it’s true. We have the power, whether you think you do or not, to read our futures. To see that is really there and be honest to ourselves about how much we really mean to the world.

Let us step forward into the light together.

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If you are in need of help and support, please do not hesitate to speak out to someone you trust or who is willing to listen and help you. If you don’t have anyone and are desperate, which is completely okay because you are not alone even if you think you are, please refer to THIS list of suicide prevention lines worldwide. Even if you do not have suicidal tendencies, it is important to reach out for help, no matter the scale of your problems.

Or, If you would like to email me privately on this article, my email address is sophiadomingo.inkmagazine@gmail.com. You can also email me if you would like to talk to me for help. I am willing to talk to anyone dealing with any problems that may be in your way.