I have been asked to write something more uplifting than my usual exhortations on existential futility. I just glanced back at my title and it read "Hoe." How's that for a Freudian Slip? I suppose my inner survivalist really wants to embrace agriculture.
Being grateful for what you have, counting your blessings, thank heaven for small favors, appreciate the little things in life, it could always be worse, things will get better, down but not out. These platitudes may seem trite and meaningless, but they definitely have their uses. Hope is not a good marketing plan, but it is a good operating plan. Hope (with an small dose of delusion to counteract general cynicism) has been the driving force behind plenty of greatness.
However hope alone is relatively ineffective. It needs to be tempered with determination, faith and a little bit of luck.
What's the difference between stumbling and running? Absolutely nothing as long as you're headed in the right direction.
As you can see by the herky-jerky nature of this post that I am having some trouble expressing myself in a positive manner. Maybe it will work better if I tell a story.
I have failed on far more than one occasion. I have failed personally, professionally, emotionally, physically, financially, mentally, academically, scientifically, logically, intellectually, romantically and probability. At times the weight of these failures was crushing my will like an egg under a boulder. One disappointment after another in such precise succession that it seemed as if my life was the Mets starting lineup. I would like to tell you that each of these failures made me a stronger man. Every setback was just another hammer blow forging a blade of success in a furnace of trial against an anvil of reality. But that was not the case.
Several of those failures simply resulted in even more failures in other areas of my life. To combat the growing disparity between the person I was and the person I could be, I simply retreated (ran away) from my real problems. Using endless bottles of alcohol, large doses of dopamine, obscene amounts of money I created a beautiful mirage of a life. Rock bottom for me was simply an excuse to break out a bigger drill. The deeper I drilled the more people wanted in on the action. Unsustainable lifestyles are the fodder for dreamers across our great nation.
Throughout all of this I never lost hope. No matter how good/bad things got I always held out hope that they could be better/worse. Without hope I would have given up a long time ago. Then again without hope I probably never would have engaged in such a self-destructive cycle to begin with. Alas self-destruction has an undeservedly bad reputation. After all how great is your self that it shouldn't be destroyed and recreated in a better form?
Having emerged from the abyss relatively unscathed I realize that there's nothing to be afraid of. Hope will never abandon you even if you decide to abandon it. It may sometimes be misguided, but it will always take you where you need to go. After all, it could always be worse.
