Pages

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

July "I Believe" Challenge - Day 13: Hope

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world...
Either we have hope within us or we don't;
it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially
dependent on some particular observation of the world
or estimate of the situation.  Hope is not prognostication.
It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart;
it transcends the world that is immediately experienced,
and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons...
Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy
that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises
that are obviously heading for success, but, rather an ability
to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands
a chance to succeed.  The less propitious the situation in which
we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is.  Hope is
definitely not the same thing as optimism.
It is not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
--Vaclav Havel

1 comment: