I want to have hope. To have a desire for something and to be reasonably confident that it will happen. Hope requires trust. Hope is beyond wishing. There is magical thinking in a wish. You wish on a four leaf clover and the shooting star. A wish is made eagerly but with a thread of knowledge that it is unlikely, far-fetched and beyond reality in someways. We wish for prince (or princess) charming. We wish on the Lotto. We wish to find that empty parking space when we turn the corner into the lot at work. I don’t do much wishing. Is it my pragmatism? I think it is more that I am not a magical thinker and my desires are reality based. What I want is within my potential and ability. Wishes are for things beyond our genuine ability. I wish I could run….I mean really run. The effortless, fluid stride and not a runner version of the “silly walk”. I am not a runner; I will never be a runner. So, I don’t get stuck in this wish loop. The energy spent on this kind of desire is wasteful.
That is not to say I do not dream. I dream. Lord, I dream big! My dreams are within my capacity. Is it likely I will travel to all my destinations? Probably not, but their is hope in these dreams. I permit myself dreams that are attainable. It is like a dream diet. If you stand at the display case, salivating over the eclair or the tiramisu but know you cannot have them….why stand there? If you hunger for blue crabs but know they will cause anaphylaxis, why fixate? Is the time spent on that want worth risking your life?
My dreams require hope: to have reasonable confidence and trust that something I desire will happen. When I lose my hope, I doubt myself. When trust is shaken….it jeopardizes my dreams. My father used to take me on long car drives. The purpose was to ask (interrogate) me on the topic of adulthood. What makes someone an adult? My answer 25 years ago, and after countless car trips, was to be financially independent of my parents. When I gave this answer the drives stopped. I had finally given the right answer. Now, I would give a different answer. Being an adult means learning that the only truly safe place to invest in our dreams coming true is in ourselves. It is the investment of hope in ourselves. It is when we stop wishing for other people to grant us our dreams and start placing our hope in our own God given abilities. A child wants to be gifted all of their desires. An adult wants to work for them, earn them, make them come true through their own endeavor and in doing so, prove they are owned. Once I place my full hope in myself, them I place my true and abiding faith in my Creator. He made me exactly with all that He knew was necessary to be what I dream and desire. When I stumble and forget my strength; when I forget what I am made of and by Whom, I have lost hope. And hope is my one true connection to the supernatural, the knowledge that I can reasonably expect to attain my desires….hope IS my magic.
