What is Hope and Why Does it Matter?

Hope is one of those things that people don’t always understand well, though oddly enough, we all need it to live a happy, healthy life. After all, hope is what helps you see your situation and then shows you the way out.

What is hope?

According to the dictionary, hope is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” Hope sees the potential in a situation. But it does more than that. Take a look at these synonyms taken from the same dictionary

“aspiration, desire, wish, expectation, ambition, aim, plan, dream, daydream.”

Hope isn’t some warm fluffy bit of happiness, nor is it a Pollyanna dose of enthusiasm, though it might contain both emotions. Hope is instead a goal that includes the desire to get there, and the feeling that you can. 

The thing to realize is that hope is necessary to live. Without it, we not only stagnate, but we also lose our will to live entirely. Hope matters. Here’s why:

Why Does Hope Matter?

Hope gets caught up in the interconnectedness of things. We need hope to realize our dreams, but as a group, our communities likewise need hope to survive. Hope shows us what we live for, and what we fight for. 

Some other aspects of hope?

• Hope makes us creative. Without hope we wouldn’t go hunting for out-of-the-box solutions to our problems, nor would we waste time trying to find a new way to do things.

• Hope puts us to work. Without hope, there’s no point in even trying to get a project done. Hope tells us to get to work and pushes us to keep going, even when interest in that project flags.

• Hope pushes us past any failure. With hope, we can see our setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow. Hope ignites our problem-solving abilities, so we understand the better way to do things through experimentation and persistence.

• Hope makes us look toward the future. More than that, it helps us let go of the past so we can welcome our bright future with open arms. Hope sees us as going somewhere, and then shows us the way to get there.

The best part about it? It’s contagious. If you go out into the world full of hope and enthusiasm, you can be sure to find that reflected at you by those around you, by those who have learned how to hope because you first showed them the way.