Shining Thru

New and exciting Ride

New People New Faces Everywhere

Bumping Laughing Talking

A new year begins

New experiences await

The excitement of anticipation is there

Waiting to see what will come

Hoping for the best

Not thinking about the worse

Knowing you have something to hope for is enough.

I started thinking about all of the types of news that people get every day:  personal news from family and friends, good and bad; news from work, good and bad, urgent or casual; media news on a city, state, nation, or world level, good or bad, happy or sad……people learn bits of news every day, and I think that every one of those pieces effects us, maybe in the smallest of ways, but I think that it effects us in the long run of things.  Good news builds and builds and makes a person feel good, but the same is with sad or stressful news in that it builds and builds until it starts to wear on a person. 

Some people take bits that they learn about life in stride and just deal with things as they come, try not to let it in if it’s negative, and are sometimes quite successful, but it is still now a reality in their life, whatever that news is.  While others take everything that they learn on a very emotional level, they can’t help but let the emotions overwhelm them sometimes; a lot of the time it’s a conscious effort to keep logic ahead of emotion when they learn of news in life. 

Some news reminds you how beautiful life can be:  falling in love, knowing that you have found the love of your life, seeing a new baby born, a sunset on the beach, children laughing, the view from a mountain top.  Other things remind you of how much life can hurt and how ugly it can be:  death of a younger person, natural disasters destroying homes and killing many, children lost or crying, someone you know becoming ill, etc. 

So, there will always be good news and bad news as long as we have emotions we are going to respond to those things.  It’s part of being of the human race I suppose, but sometimes it can really weigh on a person, I suppose that’s why we need to remember the good things that we have in life and always deal with what comes as best we can. We need to try and not leave ourselves vulnerable to letting the bad, stressful, or sad news build on our hearts or minds.

“There it is.  We get used to everything.  We find hope in anything.”  -  Ender’s Shaddow by Orson Scott Card.

I thought this was a very interesting quote as I was reading along.  I was wondering if it was actually true.  I can remember when a teacher once told me of a motif found in Crime and Punishment which was a square foot of space, someone being trapped in a small space, praying for death, but then when faced with it, they choose to stay where they are.  I wonder if that is how it works for most people?  I wonder if most people will adapt and “get use to” ANYTHING rather than choosing death, or not being alive at that time.  …. it can’t work for everyone, or there wouldn’t be suicide….those people have obviously not been able to adapt, and just get use to their situation…or do they just snap and not give themselves time to get use to it? 

As for hope, it’s a concept that I’ve wondered about quite often…what makes us hope in something…a situation, a person, a religion, a higher being; whatever the thing may be that we find great hope in….what is the reason behind it?  Do we need to feel that there is hope?  Or is there really reason to hope?  What good does having hope do for a person?…..

Are there certain emotions and feelings that we search for in life and don’t feel complete until we find them?  Are some people designed to only search for some of those things while others crave to experience all of them?  Does everyone have need of “hope”?  What if they are in their perfect situation?  What about a person who has gotten so use to not having something that they no longer feel hope for anything, have no ambition, have not need for the emotional comfort of hope, since it has only let them down in the past?  What about the people who secretly hope, but don’t want to admit it to anyone, sometimes even themselves?  They want to hope, they still have this “need” for it, but have been let down so many times that they don’t want to give it another chance to knock them down again. 

Are these things instilled in most of us and we just adjust to what we do with the needs and desires we are designed with?  Or are they things that society has drilled into us as needing?  Maybe it’s neither of these options….

What is Hope?  Why do we hold onto a thought that has no guarentee what so ever?  Why do we create things to believe in?

I think that it is built into people to hope in something; whether that’s a person, greater being, religion, idol, routine, or event. 

Do you need faith to have hope?  What should we hope and believe in?  Does hope only lead to heartache or do we simply need something to believe in at times, even if there is no logical reason to keep hoping?

Hope is an odd thing, although it can cause a lot of pain when things don’t pan out the way we want them to, I don’t know many people who want to give up hope.