The world is a beautiful place, full of beautiful things and people. Life can also be like that. Our experiences teach us, and we can admire all the life that goes on around us. Reality is though, there is a flip side. That flip side, when focused on, can make us lose hope.
Hope, what does that mean? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, it means to want something to happen or to be true and usually to have a good reason to think that it might. I guess you can align that with optimism.
Then there is faith. What does that mean? Also according to the Cambridge Dictionary, faith means great trust or confidence in something or someone.
Being a Christian, we are taught to have faith. Faith that we can be hopeful in life because the plans God has for us all are greater than we can ever imagine.
Having faith in someone, having faith in God, and all the things that He can do is something to have hope for. Regardless of whether you are religious or not, take the Bible - there are so many examples of hope and words that all of us can live by.
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Romans 12:12 "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer."
Romans 15:4 "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide, we might have hope."
I think sometimes, as humans, we rely on hope based on our circumstances, our current situation, a past one or a future one. Having hope in a storm is hard. That's where faith kicks in; we have to believe in something unseen and stand firm in the belief that all good things are God-sent and everything that happens is all a part of his plan.
It's hard to be hopeful sometimes. It's easy to write, and easy to say, but like most things, hard to practice. Hope is almost a mindset, a way you have to view the world in order to really enjoy life. I find most people use the word 'hopeful' and associate it negatively, associating it with this idea of cringe; pessimists would say being hopeful isn't realistic. The fact is, we all need to be a little hopeful. We have to believe that for ourselves and use that to fight for the lives we want to have. I'd say hope is the promise that's waiting; we just have to choose to listen when it whispers. Hope is everywhere if you look hard enough. I see hope when I see a couple rowing on the river; I see hope when a baby cries, and I see hope when I celebrate life—all the little things. And remain in faith. I believe in God; that's who I have faith in. Thats my personal belief system, that's how I live my life. What I'm trying to express here is to believe in something, have faith in something higher than yourself, whatever that is for you.