Heart. Corazon. Or, in Hawaiian, kuuipo. Oh, yeah, H is for Hawaii. Where I'm from (even though I consider New Mexico my home too). Home of my heart.
What about HOPE? What kind of image would one use for HOPE? I'm still mulling over what would be a good image to conjure up hope. But first, I must share some thoughts (I hope I don't loose you here).
This is an observation. Nothing political; merely an observation.
Since last November, I’ve heard the words, change and HOPE quite a bit. Within 24 hours of an election, all of a sudden people are filled with hope. I thought it odd. Where was their hope to begin with? How can it have magically appeared as a result of an external event?
I thought hope was something that we have within us. You know, like love. Happiness. Anger. I mean, isn’t this something that we have control of?
And then I flashed back to my undergrad days in Psychology; it was a Social Psychology class, I believe, where we covered the topic of internal versus external validation. Some people rely on external validation, that is, validation from others as a measure of their self worth. Others do not seek external validation, but find validation of themselves from within. It’s the difference between the personality that constantly seeks approval from others versus one who never relies on approval from others. Along the same vein, it is the difference between those that believe that external events control their behavior versus those that believe that they control their behavior. Of course, this is not a black and white situation; there are various gradations within these extremes.
And the observations that I made were that so many people had quite the attitude change; jubilant and giddy. Which is fine, but I think what made me stop and think is how one can switch their perspective in so small an amount of time. Which made me think; couldn’t they have done it without it being hinged on an external event? Which made me think some more about what is it that we need within us to have hope? When does despair come in and take over? How do we hold on to hope regardless of what is going on on the ‘outside’?
Now I’ve thought about this long and hard and I don’t profess to be right on this. It is merely MY observation. I think that in order to have hope, one has to have faith. Whenever that faith falters, other elements creep in. With enough faltering, that hope becomes dimmer and dimmer.
Gosh, and I’m still thinking that then the thing I need to hang onto to is faith. How can I have hope if I do not have faith?
Remember Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz who wanted nothing more than to go home? My gosh, all the things she went through to get home! Only to find out in the end from the Good Witch, that she had the way home all along within her. She didn’t need a Wizard to get her home! All she had to do was to close her eyes...and believe.
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9 comments:
Interesting and very thought provoking. I like your choices for the letter H.
Nice pictures and a wonderful story.
Bless you. I could not agree more re: hope. At one time, hope was a word I believed in, but no longer. I used to think it meant what it meant, but over the last year, during discussions with people, I have come to realize they have a whole diferent definition, and it has nothing to do with themselves. I find it sad. And puzzling.
I love this.
:) Debi
Loving that flaming heart and
the HeavenlyHat.
Hope was on my list to of New Years' resolutions/affirmations ... .
and I gotta say - each day it becomes more of a challenge.
Judith de Hangin'On
Provocative H post! Enjoyed the read...
Interesting post. I've been reading about emotions and the way the brain works recently and it all backs up what I thought; emotions are the result of a whole bunch of things, including external events and your own brain chemistry.
And since hope is an emotion it isn't something that we can conjure up for ourselves, any more than we can choose to love, or decide not to hate. Oh, we can suppress hatred, and work our way through it, and we can go out and look for love. But in the end, if we love, we can't help it, and if we hate .. yeah, we can't help it. It's what we do with those emotions that matters, I think.
I think faith is the most difficult. Either you have it or you don't. If you don't, you can't conjure it out of thin air, no matter how much you want it - or how often you are told to 'have faith'.
Clever 'H' photos! Another interesting post. Hope? Hmmm...I guess sometimes when hope is lost, externals are needed to inspire us to feel it again. Love is a little the same I think. We may have love within us, but often others influence how we experience it. How we feel it. Other people (externals) can help make the love within us shine that little more brightly. I like what you say about faith playing an important part, but sadly many don't have a strong faith so externals are sought to feel things.
Hope you're having a great week :)
These are good H choices. I very much enjoyed your reflections on hope. You seem to be a thinker; and sharing like this can inspire others....
Great choices for "H".
Thoughtful 'musings'. I agree, hope is birthed out of faith.
I love the hat, BTW!
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