Everyone has probably heard the phrase, if not the whole poem, hope is the thing with feathers. I’m not sure it is. I think sometimes hope is the thing that actually prevents you from moving on. Stick with me here, it’s not as depressing as it seems.
With hope there’s always that chance that that person will change, that job will get better, that relationship will blossom, that tragedy will dissipate. If hope is all you have then why will things change? Hope doesn’t change things. Hope provides false mentality that change might happen without any action from you. And without action hope is merely wishful thinking. I can hope everyday that I’ll win the lottery, but I don’t fucking play it. I can hope that each of the people I love will live forever but they won’t. Neither will I. If I cling onto the hope that they will, then it’s delusion.
Hope lulls you into a false sense of security and when it doesn’t come to fruition, it’s shit. But it’s not shit because you had hope, and it’s not shit that you didn’t. It’s that your hope was an expectation and possibly one which was unrealistic.
I cut contact with my mum and her long term partner a few years ago, for very good reasons. Without going into detail, she made me feel like shit. I recently had my dad over to Italy to see me. I was asked if it was a daughterly duty, or I would enjoy it, and the reality was that if I hadn’t, he would have mentioned it and hounded me until I agreed. Mostly. But there was a tiny bit of hope that perhaps he would come and see the happy life I had made. It was a drama from start to finish. In truth, ten days is the longest I have been in his company continuously for about 26 years. I already had some reservations, because I basically starting looking after both my parents when I was about six, but … christ, where do I begin?!
Their stay is the subject of a whole other blog. Hope, however. If I had hoped for a change, it would have been disappointing. Hope because my life had changed so much over all those years. Hope that perhaps there might be some pride, acknowledgment; compliments; but no. Without going into too much detail, I worked my arse off to get out of a possibly shitty life to which I could have been destined. Despite my parents. On my own with no support. All I get is criticism, by way of sarcasm and sneering. And the truth is that’s their problem and not mine.
Sometimes I feel guilty about the lack of relationships with my parents but honestly, why the fuck would I be dragged back into a circle of criticism, for doing well?
It’s a bit like forgiveness. Not a concept I’m comfortable with. People say it’s for you not the other person. I don’t buy that. Forgiveness has to be a conversation. It’s not one way. There’s a train of thought that forgiveness is for you, to let go of your anger, resentment, pain etc. I don’t buy it. The best I find I can muster is compassion. Compassion for someone who has acted in a way which sometimes requires compassion. Perhaps compassion for the fact that they have to live with their actions and might learn from them and go on to live a more compassionate and happier life.
Hope is occasionally the expectation that it will make you will feel better. More often it’s hope that others will change. And that is something you cannot control. And you could potentially be waiting a long time. Instead of hope, know that life changes every fucking day. As does the way you feel about life. So even if the people you want to change don’t, you will, and your situation will. And that means your actions and feelings will too.
It might also mean that the people you want to change won’t, but you can, and as you do, you might just change someone’s life.
My parents won’t change. But however it happened, I’m nothing like them. I have no expectations that they will change, and if I did, I’d end up depressed and disappointed. Do they have hope? Perhaps in the tiniest percentage. Does it matter? No. They’re my relatives, of course, but they’re human and perhaps not the humans I’d like them to be. But I don’t have to be them. I can be me and I don’t have to have hope and expectations that they’ll change. Or that the bloody world will change. I don’t have to have hope at all. I just have to do the best I can with the knowledge and experience I have with the aim of maybe making the world a slightly better place.
Hope is not a bad thing. But it is not enough. You have to be prepared to act. To realise that hope on its own might make you feel worse. There is no shame in eventually acting on a situation when hope has failed. Hope can be wonderful, but sometimes it requires action. Which can be bloody hard. You should never have to sacrifice your happiness to wait for the possibility that hope about things and people in your life might bring you that happiness.
I am not going to make it 