Never get to say much, never get to talk
Tell us a little bit, but not too much
Right about then, is where she give up
She has closed her eyes, she has give up hope–Talking Heads/Houses In Motion
Here’s a bold statement: giving up hope is not always a bad thing.
You heard me right. I said that isn’t always bad to give up hope.
It isn’t!
Like everything else it life, hope can be kind of a bitch.
In its biggest, baddest form hope reaches a point where it turns from doing everything you can to make sure a loved one gets the best possible medical care to causing your loved one unnecessary suffering by prolonging their life.
It’s the difference between a rational hope that if you give someone you love a little space and time to grow up that you will be happy together in the end , and letting someone who will never change use you as a doormat for years.
It’s the difference between taking singing lessons to improve your native vocal talent so you can take a shot at a music career and continuing to take singing lessons in hopes of becoming an opera singer even though every music teacher tells you that you’re tone deaf.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that hope is one of the things that gets us through life. There are a lot of obstacles that we need to get past before we get pretty much anything we want. Without hope we’d have no motivation to strive to reach those goals. Why even have a goal if you don’t hope to reach it?
People always talk about hope and faith going hand in hand, but maybe hope’s best friend should be common sense, not faith.
And sometimes it’s OK to hold onto even an irrational hope, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. Including you. I’ve got a couple of relatively irrational hopes that I won’t be giving up any time soon. Probably never.
I hope I make it to work tomorrow without coughing up a lung.
I hope I make it through the night without waking up as Michael Jackson.
Oh. Those aren’t the irrational hopes.
Never mind about them.
They’re mine.