A friend of mine asked me what’s the worst thing you can give someone. I dunno, a scorching case of herpes? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off anyone?
Nope. The answer is Hope. He’s right.
Yes, that’s a very dark and depressing answer. I said this to my mom and sister the other day and they looked at me like I had 12 heads. But without sounding too angsty, it is true. And I’ll tell you why. Hear me out.
I hoped it would rain tonight so I could leave work early. The forecast called for thunderstorms. Didn’t rain one drop. Hope obliterated.
Every time I go camping I hope the weather cooperates. Two, count em two times of the probably 20 times I’ve gone in recent years it hasn’t rained. And one of the times it didn’t rain water, it rained wind and sand in the desert of Utah. Hope obliterated.
I hoped a boyfriend of mine years ago would have gotten me something thoughtful on Valentine’s Day, even just a card. I got a lint remover, yes, a lint remover, complimentary batteries included. Hope obliterated.
I had hoped great tragedy would have never besieged my life as it did over 3 years ago. Hope obliterated.
Reshaping my personal connotation of hope has made me become a realist. Not an optimist or pessimist but a realist.
Blind hope is for the optimists but sets you up for disappointment. (Dreamy romcom lovers)
Despair is for the pessimists but will give you an early heart attack. (The Stanley Hudsons of the world – The Office reference for those not in the know)
Expectations are mostly what I go by now. They are for realists and they can go both ways.
I do still have hope for some things in life. After all, I’m not a complete fatalist. But it all depends on where you get your hope (or expectations) from.
Now don’t get me wrong, beside my whiny sounding instances above, I love my job and I have loved every time I’ve gone camping–rain, wind, sand or not. (Well, except that one time in 2008 but that’s a long story.) I’ve learned in the grand scheme of life that small disappointments like rain on a camping trip are nothing to get upset about. Hey, things could always be worse.
The hope I had on those occasions I had placed in the weather, and we all know you can’t trust Mother Nature. She’s about as predictable as a professional Philadelphia sports team. Especially with global warming, you never know what you’re gonna get these days. (Unless you’re like Donald Trump and don’t believe global warming is real. Tell that to the polar bears.)
But hope that the weather will cooperate for you on any given occasion is okay because that comes from Mother Nature and she doesn’t promise anything except the unexpected. If you’re gonna take your hope from what the weatherman says on your local news station, well now you’re just being ridiculous.
It’s the hope that other people give to you that is the problem.
That cute guy you met at the bar the other night never called? But wait, he said he would. He gave you false hope.
Your friends all bailed on going to that fun concert with you? (Pre-pandemic of course) But they promised they would go. They got your hopes up, like a poorly constructed paper airplane.
I had hoped my boyfriend at the time would have gotten me anything else for Valentine’s Day and that our relationship hadn’t gotten to the point of giving appliances as gifts. Truly, nothing at all would have been a better present. Nothing says love like a lint remover.
(Sidenote: in the weird ways the world works the lint remover actually turned out to be a golden ticket. A local radio station was running a contest on stories of the worst Valentine’s gifts ever given. My boyfriend called in and won. We got a free dinner at The Continental in Philly. The Universe cracks me up.)
Anyway, in all these instances hope was given by other people. When you place your hope in what others do or say or promise, you’re now giving up control. And depending on what you expect from these people, you’re probably just setting yourself up for disappointment.
These people gave you the worst thing you can give someone–hope.
They made you plan, wait, dream, have faith, only to take it all away, leaving you sitting home alone spending all night removing cat hair from your sweater. Did you actually expect them to call, show up, be thoughtful? Of course you did, that’s why you feel hurt.
Now if you know them to be unreliable, noncommittal, inconsiderate, then you spared yourself just a bit less hurt if you expected as much.
Then there’s tragedy. There really isn’t much you can do about that. Took me a long time to realize that.
Some things that happen are just completely out of your control and it’s no one’s fault. I truly hope none of you have had to endure too much tragedy in your life, but as we know, life usually doesn’t work out that way.
This is where the Universe comes in and that’s one thing I still have hope in, even though expectations should have me feeling otherwise.
I trust that the Universe is giving me exactly what I need, even though it’s not always what I want or hoped for.
But you’re probably saying geez, don’t you at least have hope in yourself? Oh but I do. Except I don’t call it hope, I call it accountability because I am the only one in control of my own happiness.
I don’t need to hope that I will be happy with my life, I need to have faith that I will make it so because it is entirely in my hands. Yes, even through uncontrollable tragedy, it’s what you do to survive it and how you carry that cinder block of heartache with you in the future that affects your happiness.
And yes, you too can take charge of your life and your own happiness. If life isn’t going the way you want it to don’t just hope it will get better, make it better damn it! You can never get rid of the cinder block, but you can break it up into smaller, more manageable pieces.
The “woe is me” people have the most trouble doing that. I’ll lend them a jackhammer. They cling onto hope like plastic wrap. But that shit never works, even the name brand one. You only end up suffocating yourself in a tangled mess frustratingly trying to find the beginning of the roll.
So this is just my humble opinion on hope. Believe me, there’s been times when I had completely lost all hope, even in the Universe.
But time does heal all wounds and the cinder block is feeling lighter everyday. I took charge because what is the alternative? Whining? Complaining? Giving up?
Yeah been there done that. That shit gets old.
The Universe doesn’t like quitters. So even if you don’t agree with me that hope is the worst thing you can give someone, just know that through accountability you can give yourself hope and happiness.
Proud and happy or regretful and sad, your overall mindset and life are in your control. Either way, maybe this all just makes ya think, at least a little.
I hope.
CM
7/3/20
