On Hope and Expectations

I had a time in life - okay, pretty much my whole life up until a few years ago - where I was afraid of the word & feeling of "hope". It's supposed to be an amazing thing, but when your life is full of constant disappointment from your family, teachers, love and overall life, you think it's better to live without it.

Then of course the world teaches you to never expect anything. Probably in line with that other word "assume." That's supposed to be a horrible word now isn't it? Don't assume anything. Don't expect anything. Never be disappointed. An easy mantra to get through this life. I didn't have too much of a strong opinion of it growing up, and one day it seemed like the only way I knew how to make it through each day. Can't depend on anything. Don't think anything is ever going to come through. Heaven forbid you actually do half hope something actually will happen, and then that storm comes through smacking you off those few steps you climbed up the ladder and laughs in your face for daring to think of something positive while you lay on the ground.

There is nothing anyone could have said or done probably, for the first 30 years of my life, to make me think things could be much of any other way. It was beyond jaded. It was just checking out. It was acceptance. And that was life.

Whatever I say will probably not convince you either way, but that's not my point. Along with discovering and presenting the world of fitness, beauty, happiness and health, there is a real person with a real story that most of us have a part of or at least can relate to. We all have a world with imperfection and dissapointment, but what if that is the exact thing that can give us a better life?

What if we dared try to hope? What if we actually did view each coming day as a gift instead of something we feared waking up? What if we knew all of the horrible things that might happen, but instead chose to think of all of the amazing things that could happen?
That would be a kind of awesome feeling now, wouldn't it?

It's been a pretty rough week for me, and whoever is reading this now, you may have had a pretty rough week too. That may be an understatement. Or you may know someone who is having a hard time. All I really want to say right now, is that I know very much what it is like to not believe or have any hope, and be terrified of the thought of even having that feeling - but having it - whether or not dreams and hopes will come true, or what tomorrow will bring, anything good or bad... Hope is a pretty awesome feeling, and it's a pretty awesome way to live each day.

I still don't expect things, but I do hope for many things. I'll take things day by day, week by week, tomorrow is promised to no one.
I do know though, that if this world were to end in two weeks, that I would much rather have lived this time with the hope of things that may never happen, than to live this time thinking those things never will.

Carpe diem.