Hope

“Man can live 4 weeks without food, 4 days without water, 4 minutes without air, but only 4 seconds without hope!” 

What is hope? I would agree that it outranks food, water and air. According to Merriam Webster, hope is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen, a feeling of trust or to want something to happen or be the case.”

Is “hope” different than “wish”? According to Merriam Webster, wish is to “feel or express a strong desire or hope for something that is not easily attainable; want something that cannot or probably will not happen, a desire or hope for something to happen.”

Well, it seems the only difference is trust. Hope includes a feeling of trust that isn’t part of wishing. In fact, wish is “hope for something that is not easily attainable”. No wonder wishing is not more important than food, water and air. We don’t really expect our wishes to come true. Like the song in Disney’s Cinderella,

When they say “hope reigns supreme”, does that mean when the chips are down, hope can swing the odds in our direction? It trumps everything else, like a royal flush or aces?

There is an old saying that I heard as a child when I wished for things out loud. It went something like this……”wish in one hand and spit in the other, then see which one fills up faster”. That doesn’t sound very nice, but it rings loudly in my ears. As an adult, I was talking with some friends about wanting a sail boat and one said, “well, you should name it Wishful Thinking”. I laughed, but I knew what was behind the comment. They thought that it would never happen. They were wrong.

As long as you have hope and your health, you have everything you need to create the life of your dreams. Start now.