Hope is defined as a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. Hope is what drives our dreams, prayers and wishes. It is something that we have every day from the moment we are born till the last breath we take. Some hopes are our own, some have been given to us by others and some are hopes that we think others want for us. We are told from early on to, “Try not to get your hopes up.” We probably don’t even realize how often we say the words, “I hope…” Some of our hopes are small and some are big. Each time one goes by another one comes. It’s all about the unknown.
Hopes can be crushed and cause us to feel devastated and also what keeps us going from one day and sometimes one hour to the next. This time of year we think about it more as many hope to have a better year of health, overcoming personal struggles, finances, organization, or just being better at something. Often times we don’t share our hopes with anyone in case they don’t turn out. When people feel like they haven’t succeeded or see no way of achieving their hopes they can become depressed. If they aren’t sure if they have the right hopes or if they may not have turned out how they worry about what others think of their hopes they can become anxious. I have struggled with anxiety for a long time and have had depression different times throughout this journey. I feel like a lot of times it involved hopes that I had that were crushed and questioning whether or not I was on the right track or not.
Over the years I have had more hopes that I can even remember. Some of the major ones were hopes of keeping my foot, graduating high school, getting a job I wanted, getting into college, finding the right person to spend my life with, having kids, that loved ones could beat cancer and many more. Some have worked out and others have not. Things that I have learned are: if you don’t try you will never know if it will work out, if you don’t share your hopes with others you may be missing out on someone that can help you with your hopes, praying for your hopes is a must even if they don’t turn out how you hoped; even when you don’t want to you have to get up out of bed every morning and live life, you never know when you may be an inspiration for someone else even if you don’t think that you are and that there is always someone worse off than me.
This year I have hopes of feeling better, having less pain, doing more with my kids and husband, no more surgeries, walking, running, writing more, sharing my story with others through writing, traveling, and would love to be able to speak to different groups of people (high school students, alternative high school students, anger management/ road rage classes, health care workers, and anyone else that could be inspired about my journey.