Impossible Hopes

Too often we let the weight of the realities of the world press us down. We have hope, this passing fancy, that in the end everything is going to be all right. But secretly we know, deep down, that things are going to keep sucking, just like they suck right now.

Hope seems only ever to thrive when that which is hoped for is clearly possible. Take away the seeming possibility that you can achieve your hopes... and all hope is lost. While this may seem only natural, of course you can't hope for something that can't happen... it also makes hope fail precisely at the moment when you need it the most. When facing the inevitable.

Foster invulnerable hope. Try to hope for impossible things. Now, don't go hoping for impossible things you shouldn't have, like for power beyond measure, or for people to change so that they love you. But develop in yourself a ludicrous strain of hope that is capable of attaining a vision of wildly, unlikely, and downright impossible events of moral, intellectual, personal, spiritual, physical, and social triumph.

This will tend to improve your mood. It will also improve your thinking. Too often people decide what is possible before even ever giving it a shot. In my short life I have hoped for many audacious things, and many of them turned out to be actually possible.

Why do people give up hope for the impossible? They don't want to be fools. They don't want to get caught believing in something that could never come to pass. What an arrogant bunch of bull. All they succeed at is never being wrong.

I'd gladly be wrong, and hope for something that was never going to be, if it meant that I also accepted and helped actualize events that seemed impossible but actually were tenable. If my audacious hope makes me a fool, so be it. It also makes me unbreakable, innovative, and positive.

An unbreakable, innovative, positive fool. I'll take it.

We often think that our hope fails when it should. That when the light finally fades away, that it is now the time when despair should take hold. When carrying a valuable, heavy object, and someone drops it, do we all think, "Well, he dropped it when he should." No, we think, "If he had been a bit stronger, he wouldn't have dropped it." Don't wanna drop large, expensive things? Go to the gym. Take responsibility for your strength.

We should feel the same responsibility to our moral strength. When we fail ourselves or our commitments we should take it as a sign that we need moral exercise. Go to the moral gym, as it were. Use the spiritual communities in your life to motivate your personal growth. Find people you look up to and ask what they do to stay in morally excellent condition. Consider the activities that hone your spirit into things you want to become.

Push yourself. Don't hide behind self descriptions that limit your potential or lower the standard of conduct you have committed yourself to.

Now, keep in mind that moral cultivation can be satisfying, but it is ultimately for serving the world. Don't become overly proud about your accomplishments, and don't put your inner conditioning as a higher priority than serving the outside world. Also, keep in mind that you do not achieve good on your own, but hone yourself to be an ever greater instrument of God's work.