Anticipation.

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. and no good thing ever dies.

I don't remember how many times and to how many people I've recited these lines, in the 6+ years since I watched 'The Shawshank Redemption' for the first time. And yet, much as I keep convincing people to believe in these words, I sometimes find it hard to trust in them for myself, shaking in the belief about the sanctity of these words.

For longer than I can remember, I had been certain about my life and the way it'd go on. I knew what was going on, and where I wanted to see it, for whatever time-frame was asked of me. And then, 6 months back, things changed drastically, dramatically.

All throughout these 6 months, up until the last few weeks when I found some peace of mind and stability, I had been wondering what is it that kept me going. What is it, that even after the tables had turned, made me want to believe in a better tomorrow than the yesterday? And each time, there was a singular answer: Hope.

Hope is one emotion that I don't understand much. It's moody, and shows up only when I'm either very low or very elated. It doesn't turn up when I'm in a neutral mood. Hope is erratic in how strongly it comes by and puts its face in front of me. It is arrogant and refuses to shake, no matter how much I wish for it to be gone. It is important, even if I wish for it to be superfluous.

Over the past few weeks, each day, I've been hoping more than I have before. More for the future that I want to see and the life that I want to live, becoming only more certain with each day, about how I want to live it. It isn't the dreams, it is the hopes that I'm talking about. These sprouts of stability, make me anticipate the future I want to live, I have always wanted to live.

So, is it that when you rise from a devastating fall, you hope even more strongly? I don't think so. Shouldn't it be the other way, that you stop hoping for and wanting much, because your dreams have shattered once?

I realize that what drives our anticipation for a better tomorrow is a desire for better days, a yearning for a happier life and a wanting for things to be different. We don't want things to be the same way they've been before. It's tried and tested that it doesn't make us happy. We want them to be different. And that's exactly what we hope for. This desire to want different things and to make sure the same things don't happen to you again, is the reason why we refuse to be the same person anymore, and why we, unconsciously, end up hoping more than we did before.

It usually is after a huge, unexpected blow that we start thinking more clearly than we did ever before, even though it all seems like a massive blur, a daze, in the beginning. Because all throughout, we've realized what we don't want. In retrospect, we've actually understood how particular we've got about what we want.

I've seen people strife to get to where they have seen themselves, and hurt their ownselves in the process of getting there. It dumbfounds me how healthy it is, and it doesn't seem ideal to me. Far from it, in fact.

What is it about hope that keeps us so enticed in it, about it? Why can't we just dismiss it as a random emotion, that the pessimist inside each one of us would like to deal with it as? Why can't we refuse to accept and we still believe that the best is yet to come, even if superficially sometimes? Why do we keep going even when we think all is lost?

Hope isn't conscious, that's something I'm certain about. It is subconscious. It has to be. Enough that the only thing that's real about it is its presence. There's little we know about how it empowers us even in the most unexpected, unwanted, uncalled for conditions. And hope drives fear away. It is in the hope of a better tomorrow that we can stop worrying about it. It is in the happy anticipation that we can sleep peacefully at night.

Hope is stronger than we know, or believe it to be. It is straight forward, not crooked. We simply hope for things that'd make us happy, in the end. Not those which would fetch us the slightest of sadness.

And, all of that, is exactly what makes hope so powerful an attitude that it moves mountains. It is only because of hope that there's light at the end of a tunnel. It is knowing, believing and wanting to get out of the pain that gets us out past the most perplexing situations. It pulls us forward when all we want to do is stay stuck in a place and sulk. It sits by us, patiently until we need to lament, and then convinces us of what we deserve.

For all the sadness and pain, there's an equal amount of hope that drives us to the happiness we so truly deserve.

Yes, hope, indeed, is a good thing. And probably, the best thing.

After all, there is something positive, even at the end of even the best day. Anticipation.