Hope - A blessing Or A Curse

Identical twins Henrick and Eric were direct opposites in every way. Henrick was an optimist and Eric, a pessimist. Their mother Sally has high hopes on Henrick, and felt hopeless for Eric. On their birthday, their mother Sally loaded Eric’s room with lots of toys and games. On Henrick’s room, she loaded with horse manure.

That night, Sally went into Eric’s room and found him sitting amid his new gifts, crying bitterly. "Why are you crying?" Sally asked. "Because my friends will be jealous, I need to read all these instructions before I know how to play the games. I will constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken.”

Over at Henrick’s room, Sally found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. "What are you so happy about?" she asked. "There's gonna to be a pony in here somewhere!".

HOPE – a very common word we used very often in our daily lives. Author Bernie said, "Refusal to hope is nothing more than a decision to die."

What then is hope? It is a wish for something with the expectation that it will be fulfilled. A wish is a strong desire for a specific thing – If it can be fulfilled, great. Else, there is no expectation that it will be fulfilled.

We all have dreams, or at least, the ability to dream. History has proven that people don’t become successful overnight. From the Wright brothers, we get aeroplanes. Leonado Da Vinci dreamt of becoming a great artist. Napoleon spent time leading and managing his troops and conquered Europe in his mind. Henry Ford gave us the chance to own cars.

These people - they are successful because of their unique contribution to mankind. They are successful through a journey of perspiration and aspiration. They are successful because they all started with a dream, they see hope, they take action to churn their dreams into reality.

Dreams without action are just dreams. It is the same with hope. You can keep on hoping and hoping and hoping. By just hoping, you too can live a life of happiness - a life of full of dreams and not one of achievements.

Hope is thus the key element to success and happiness. A powerful driver inherent in each and everyone of us, hope is only forceful when combined with physical power of action. We often say ‘We hope this…. ‘, ‘We hope that…’ and it is often in situations which we have no control over. Hope is the star that shines in the darkest moments of our lives, providing us with the fuel to visualize a brighter future and think positively, like Henrick, who hopes to find a pony in the pile of manure.

Hope, when misunderstood, give rise to false hopes and this causes people to fail and lose control of their lives. To them, hope has become hopeless. This is apparent in the pain and suffering of millions of people. Sally, the mother is one of them.

Faced with a situation, they see it as hopeless and gave up hope without fighting. They do not understand they can turn the situation to their favour simply by hoping for things which they have no control in.

Ladies and Gentlemen, hope is both a blessing and a curse. It all depends on what you do.

• Never rely purely on hope when action can be taken.
• Use hope along with action to accomplish what might seem impossible.
• Hang on to hope, even when a situation is out of your control.