The Ambition of Hope

When what was once automatic and familiar starts to feel foreign and a work that you don’t feel equipped for, overwhelm may take camp and anxiety can fan its flame. Right there is when hope becomes an ambition.

Most of us are familiar with the flame of hope when we are storming waters we’ve never swam in before. You don’t have the anxiety of disappointment ridiculing you, but that does not exempt you from the weighty pull that ‘start- up hope’ has on your being. Consider the analogy of a car going uphill. With the force of gravity suggesting it roll back, its only concern is to get past this hurdle ; without much attention being placed on what lies ahead. A different case lies in hand when the car has successfully made it over the hill but unfortunately been met with unprecedented harm or perhaps something less impairing; a delay. In the aforementioned scenario, one’s hope becomes more fragile as it either shies away and becomes enmeshed by spider webs or, it becomes reckless and operates without intention as a way of rebelling towards the trauma of injury. Now, one would assume that these two instances envelope the altercations that your hope is called to endure, but a walk in the park of progression has brought into the mix, ‘hope in transition.’

In looking up the word 'hope' in the Cambridge dictionary, synonyms provided were inclusive of the words aspiration, objective and intention. While they are similar, they contain distinctions in their definitions which pulled me to the conclusion that hope, just like the attainment of vision, is a process. Sustainment of hope requires repetition of the cycle, making it a consistent effort.

At its genesis, hope is an aspiration and its bone can be dissected to the root of inclination. Your being shows desire towards where the gravitational pull is stronger; regardless of how foreign it may be in some instances. This may account for joy, peace, health or wealth; whose waters you may have traded in before but never to the capacity your spirit knows you are capable of. The fire in your soul is propelled by the awareness that there's more to what you've either been exposed to or what your mind has envisioned. Your energy feels drawn towards it but it's merely waves as it begins because there's nothing tangible to support it. As the energy builds up, your imagination becomes more familiar with the possibility of this becoming your reality. This ultimately makes that which you feel inclined towards, irresistible to some degree.

With an urge so strong, more time is invested in picturing the potential present and this results in a clearer image of what it is you desire. At this point, your mind is so engulfed by the passion stirred that inclination has brought about. Objective is birthed and if you’re all about visuals then your Pinterest board is all set. However, the hill approaches and your hope becomes intimidated by the glares of insecurity and past mistakes which may go as far as generations before you. If you’ve dared to dive into the waters of hope before but got swept by the waves, then you’re in understanding of how fear can allow you to create objective but forbid you from seeing it through. There's something about the shame of failure that convinces us that our palates can no longer recognise a good thing. You may still trust your imagination but struggle with feelings of inadequacy. They say the grass is greener where you water it but you wonder if the water your well has, can produce fruit. You're set on your desires but your trauma begs to differ. This is where you realise that your hope has reached crossroads and stagnation is not as far-fetched a reality as it previously was.

There’s something about knowing that you have it in you but failing to identify the exact location of its storage. It evokes a sense of doubting your sanity while releasing frustration. You’re lost as to whether you should sit in the pain or fear and allow it to marinate you, or clasp at the straw of hope you can see as it feels like your head is going under the water.

Well, hear this progressive heart:

The paradoxical nature of trauma is that it can either get you to forget your desires and run or face everything and rise. When it does the latter, your hope is required to be intentional. Your desire to do more research on that area of interest is no longer instinctive and so you now need to schedule it in. Even when you do schedule it, it still feels like an agonising task that you dread because you don’t feel like you have it within you; so you resort to scheduling fifteen minutes to it and hope that if the flow allows, you continue from there.

Your financial literacy strategy may have been hit in the gut but the urge to break financial generational curses won’t let you rest without a solid fight; and so you start dropping coins in that piggy bank. You know the joy of the Lord is your strength but you can’t gather up syllables to express your anguish and render your plea for help; and so your sighs which are too deep for words become your medium of communication. This makes it clear that it’s not always a matter of not being able to launch but rather a fear of returning like a boomerang; but without yielding fruit.

The more you zoom into the areas of your life that require the agent of hope for growth, the more you realise how cyclic its sustainment is. Cognisant of such, it becomes a necessity that you journey patiently and persistently with it; from its seed form in aspiration to its bud form in objectivity and eventually its leafy form in intentionality. That, dear progressive heart is where you will begin to see fruit.

Her journeying heart,

Pretty Conscience