You Gotta Give 'em Hope.

As you know, I dearly love This American Life. I love it so much that I keep episodes and listen to them over and over again. So much that I enrolled in a minicourse on the Audio Essay. Well, I'm listening to episode #178: Superpowers, and this particular quote struck me:

"Typically, this is how it goes. People who turn invisible sneak into the movies or onto airplanes, people who fly stop taking the bus. Here is one thing pretty much no one ever says, 'I would use my power to fight crime.' No one seems to care about crime..."
"...Going-to-Paris man is not a superhero, and I have to say this drove me crazy a little bit, we are, after all, talking about super powers. Why not take down organized crime, bring hope to the hopeless, swear vengeance on the underworld, if only a little bit?"

Do we really need superpowers to inspire hope? I think not. Hope is a funny thing. Now I'm no philosopher, linguist, or sociologist; but I think hope is simply our belief that something will be the way we want it to be. Kind of like wishing, but hope has a little more wiggle room. When you wish for something, you are usually pretty specific, "I wish I had a bit more money," or "I wish things didn't turn out like this," or even, "Do you think we will make it to the top? ...I wish."

Hope, in a way, prepares you for disappointment, but gives you that little bit of light inside. "Oh, I hope so!" has a much lighter feeling than "I wish." People inspire hope, desire generates wishes. Hope gives you the strength to continue, wishing makes you realize where you are. "You cannot live on hope alone, but, without it, life is not worth living."



Go give some hope out today.

One Response so far.

  1. You inspire me and give me hope every time we talk. I love your writing and this video is absolutely fantastic. Keep it up, Colin! <3

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