Does Hope Feel Fleeting?
Maybe you're amazed when it shows up at all?
Yeah. Been there, done that.
After life blindsided me ‘til I was pretty much on my knees begging for an end to it all, hope left the building. It didn't announce it was leaving. It just stopped showing up in my heart.
I didn't even notice at first. I was too busy "managing expectations" like a responsible adult. Translation? Surviving and denying.
That phrase? "Managing expectations"?
What a beautiful way to say: stuffing your pain and killing your dreams before anyone else can.
Thanks to a mountain of society’s programming, most of us put on the "Realist" costume. You know the one. It says things like:
"I'm being practical."
"I’m a realist."
"Hope for the best, expect the worst."
Sound familiar?
We wear it because someone taught us that hoping was irrational. That wanting something—really wanting it—was setting ourselves up to be disappointed, and potentially laughed at, embarrassed.
We were trained to want less. Expect less. Get smaller and smaller.
Some called it wisdom. I call it bullshit .
What if "being realistic" is just sitting in a dark room refusing to flip the light switch because the bulb might burn out someday?
You're still sitting in the dark like an idiot.
I spent years in that room. Performing life on the outside. Flat on the inside. Wondering where the hell my spark went.
Turns out, I hadn't lost it.
I'd just been trained to turn the switch off.
Here's what nobody tells you: hope isn't something that happens TO you. It's something you turn ON.
It's not wishing. It's not naive. It's the thing that helps your brain get creative —see solutions, make connections, imagine something different.
With it? Doors start appearing that were always there. You just stopped seeing them when Hope left the building.
Without it? You're stuck in survival mode. Anxious. Stuck. Unable to see past the wall in front of you.
Who taught you to keep the switch off?
And why are you still listening?
You weren't designed to "manage" your way through life. You weren't built to be small. Anything but.
That power—the one that feels so far away some days—it's right there. It is your birthright. All our birthrights.
We were just misled about our truth. Again and again.
The Truth?
All you have to do is flip the switch.
So flip the damned switch.