NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

Safekeeping Your Precious Hope

Guard Against its Deformation

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She stood there, utterly heartbroken. Holding back tears, she summoned all her strength to lift her head once more. Staring into the distance, she whispered a vow to stand back on her two feet again, no matter what it would take. Suddenly darkness fell upon this sacred moment, ending the touching scene abruptly. And you, the audience, are left with three big, boring words: “Three years later”.

As expected, after such a pause, another scene comes, and the movie goes on, unfolding new developments.

Holding dear a hope

We are all familiar with the narrative intercession of “Three years later” or the like. The film director somehow decided that nothing was worthy of the audience’s attention within those three years when the main characters were simply immersed in their daily routines and living uninterestingly normal lives. But no, the film has not ended yet. Something is brewing in the air, some force is pulling pieces together, and some hope is buried yet still alive.

This brief segment of life is simply labeled “n years later”.

Recently, I have been doing a ton of thinking. Especially at the beginning of a year, when everyone is making new resolutions, I am setting fresh new life goals too. This year, I have a special kind of goal, a very humble one I believe, yet also remarkably ambitious: to hold onto a hope, keeping it alive, yet not deflating it or inflating it one bit.

Deforming a hope

I’m sure you can relate to the struggle of just waiting around. Ask the kids — they pull faces, cross their arms, and blurt out rude comments like “It’s taking forever!” Well, we grown-ups aren’t much better. We put on a facade, pretending to be fine while quietly holding back all the anger and unease within.

As I look back on my life, during the dull episodes of waiting for a hope to materialize, I often find myself having a tendency to deform it — sometimes deflating it, and other times inflating it.

I believe you have also deflated a hope before, and considered it a rational decision. Imagine as time passes and not seeing your hope getting any real chance of being fulfilled, you conclude that the hope is too out-of-reach, and will never have a chance. You then call it a reality check.

I would say, 90% of the time, I did kill my own hopes based on purely logical reasoning. The remaining 10%, though, I extinguished them prematurely out of irrational fear. What fear? The fear of disappointments and disillusions, the fear of clinging to an unfulfilled hope for the rest of my life.

Can one really tell whether their fear is irrational or not?

Well, I simply know. When you are completely honest with yourself, the truth reveals itself readily.

For instance, there are times when I have certain hopes that are bound to be fulfilled in the distant future, and there’s still a long way to go before I can comment on their chances of success at the moment. Yet the long journey of waiting has hurt my pride so deeply and I simply want to give up. Therefore, I deflate the hope, making it appear tiny as if it wouldn’t hurt if forgotten.

Other times I do the opposite. The long waiting hurts so much that I must inflate the hope, making it look grand and worthy of all the accompanying pain. This provides a temporary anchor, allowing me to hold on to the hope a little longer. But inevitably, then comes the free-fall! The unrealistic optimism crashes onto the hard ground of reality and paralyzes me.

Have you ever walked on a tightrope? To not fall, a funambulist must maintain their balance all the time. To me, keeping a hope undeformed is as hard as walking down a tightrope — losing one’s balance would mean a rather ugly fall.

Paying the price

It takes extensive training to become a funambulist, and so I think there should be no shame or guilt when we realize that, at times, we deform our hopes only to fall into big regrets.

From the view of the audience, a funambulist’s balancing skills is why they pay for the tickets willingly, and why they catch their breath during the show. We humans can identify and appreciate values that are invisible and merely floating in the air, can’t we?

If we take a moment to reflect on life deeply and consider how much it takes for a grand and awesome hope to materialize, we will come to the realization that enduring a prolonged wait is not only fair but necessary. Our sweat and tears form just part of the equation; the winds must turn around for our takeoff, and winds, with no eyes, treat everyone the same.

Think of the last time you happily pay to watch a great movie. All the dramas, the ups and downs, the surprises, the tears, and everything in the movie is worth the price. I believe the same holds true for our lives. If we want ours to be a great show, to possess great value, to be able to make the audience’s heart race, it is only fair that we pay a higher price for its greatness. And we know too well that the higher price is nothing but our pride.

Deforming a hope before its fruition is somewhat like worshipping an idol rather than the true God. We are making excuses to not honor our initial commitment and first love, and belittling the values that we once held dear.

Restoring my hope

This year’s resolution is to restore my old hope to its purest form, to make it look exactly as it did from day one.

And then, I would hold on to it, this time, fully prepared for the long waiting journey ahead, the “n years later” phrase to carve into my life.

I will embrace those years that the film editor chose to cut. I will live my ordinary life till the day when extraordinary things happen and my hope, in its purest form, gets realized.