What is hope? I hope you can help me figure it out. I hope I can get a job. I hope I can get a raise. I hope my son realizes the importance of completing his school with A’s instead of being satisfied with F’s. I hope my wife doesn’t divorce me. I hope I can retire someday. I hope I can play professional football. I hope I can make it as an actor in Hollywood. I hope my auto mechanic doesn’t charge me for work I don’t need. I hope the plumber I use is actually a trained, licensed plumber who knows what he is doing. I hope my cancer is benign. I hope I win the election. I hope I make the deal. I hope I win the race. I hope I get the girl. I hope I get rich. I hope I win the lottery. I hope, I hope, I hope.
One dictionary defines hope as: the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.
From a statistical point of view, our hopes don’t come true very often. For example, I recently read that at any given moment, there are approximately 60,000 high school athletes in the nation, all hoping for a professional career in their sport. As one ascends thru the sporting world, the competitive nature of sports, the winning is everything philosophy, pretty much rules out decision making based on political correctness, so the most capable are selected regardless of other considerations. With athletics, often it is easy to tell who is the most capable.
All hopefuls line up here and run the hundred, swim to the far end of the pool, shoot free throws, throw a football, bat a baseball. The top three come over here; the rest of you hit the lockers.
As these young athletes face high school level competition, some get cut. When the remainder progress to college level sports, more don’t make the grade. From there, it is on to professional sports, which weeds out almost all of the rest. In fact, according to the article, only around six out of the 60,000 hopefuls, every collect a professional level paycheck. That is .01%. That is a small number. If you have one million dollars invested at .01% per year, your million dollars would earn you $100.
However, based on the hope these young athletes have, they work out hard for years, they practice their sport for years, hoping to perfect their talent to a professional level. They most likely eat only certain foods, denying themselves other foods; they spend thousands of dollars on vitamins, protein powders, and other magical solutions, in hopes of that professional career. They might take steroids and other so called performance enhancing drugs. Their bodies sustain injuries from their sports. High school athletes with broken jaws, cracked femurs, destroyed shoulders, and water logged knees. These injuries may be with these young hopefuls for the rest of their lives.
In their minds, it will all be worth it when they are a professional athlete, a star, receiving the love and admiration of the world, the paycheck of a movie star, the bling of a king, the castle like crib, and, of course, all of the friends and sex they could ever hope for.
What did hope do for these young athletes? Why did they persist through the physical pain of injury, the psychological pain of rejection, the financial pain of all that wasted money; to end up without the hoped for career? Was that a smart decision? Did their parents guide them wisely? Was hope a good guiding light; a good basis for decision making?
What if we answer no? What is left if we don’t have hope? Being hopeless sounds dismal. Being hopeless sounds like personal bankruptcy; like nothing left to live for. One dictionary says that despair is often regarded as the opposite of hope.
Movies, songs, books, stories, poems, parents, and friends all glorify chasing your dreams. There is a place for dreams. There is a time for hope. I’m just not sure where and when. If this article generates some reader response, maybe we will post some of your comments.
In any case, I hope you call Mr. Fix It Plumbing, when you need plumbing problems solved. Our plumbers and office staff work hard to repair plumbing problems and please customers. I hope that is good enough to make you happy so you always call us back, with hopes of being treated fairly. I hope you decide that our skill, honesty, and effort ranks us in the top .01% of plumbers.
