"Within our hearts is a single repository for both despair and hope. Filling that space with one totally drives out all but the most shadowy memory of the other. Today, I am filled only with hope."
- Charles Singleton in the book 'The Twelfth Card' by Jeffery Deaver.
A long long time ago in ancient Greek mythology, a woman named Pandora was given a box by the gods which she was instructed never to open. Eventually her curiosity overcame her and she opened it, releasing all its content unto mankind. The box was said to contain all the evils of the world and hope, the only good thing inside. Sadly today, we remember Pandora, just like Eve, as the woman whose mistake has cost us a lot of trouble.
With reference to the story now known as Pandora's box, we learn that Hope is the mother of all good and good desire, hence is the only mental tool with which we can fight evil. Every emotion (faith, trust, happiness, even love) is a form of expressing hope. For example, I can hope on love, I can hope for success but I can't love or succeed on hope. Words like love, success and change are products and derivatives of hope.
Hope, they say is a skeptic's word. That if one does not have hope, hope cannot be destroyed and ultimately one cannot be disappointed. Well, what if they are wrong? Can't we see that the very notion of hope was premised on the probability of disappointment. What if there is hope, hope we have not even dreamt of hoping for, hope so tangible that it makes all the difference. A difference was made by those who tried, change was invented by those who dared. To 'try' is to risk failure. The word 'risk' means nothing without hope, so every risk-taker is a hope-user. Hope is volatile and once lost, despair creeps up into our hearts. Despair breeds cowardice which could lead to depression and subsequently, death.
Einstein said that one can live his life as if nothing is a miracle or one can live as if everything is a miracle. Your choice. Barack Obama captured my heart by associating with the word 'hope' and its derivatives. Martin Luther King (Jnr.) said in his famous 'I have a dream' speech that even from the mountain of despair we can hew out a stone of hope. When we can understand the message of hope from these great individuals, we realize that we can hope against hope, we can hope upon hope, we can hope beyond reason and then see - that's what dreams and miracles are made of.
Each of us has a 'Pandora's box' in our care. Can we do better than she did? No! But Hope.
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