Part 3

Not everyone will understand why being aggressively hopeful is even helpful if you are the only direct beneficiary, however, so I ought to describe and define it. For me, it could begin when one of my friends and editors commented, saying “life being vibrant isn't a fact. I want to know why you think that. What happened to you, to make you value it?” What happened to me was that I went through a depressive period in my life. I felt like I couldn’t find joy in anything—not the hobbies I had previously, and not the people I considered my friends. Any sense of enjoyment was ripped as soon as I turned to my inner thoughts. It became a cycle of not thinking about what I enjoyed or what I was doing with my life, and I performed poorly in school or messed up my own relationshipd. The depressive thoughts were endless depressed, and I never wanted to think about what I was doing with my life. Everything seemed hopeless—like I didn’t want to keep going. I’d end up crying while thinking about how I felt trapped. Yet, I couldn’t take steps towards ending my life because of the shreds of hope that had barricaded themselves somewhere in me.

I used to think I was a pessimist, but I don’t think so anymore. I couldn’t let go of the hope that someone would come and help me get out of this mess, or that the world would align for me. Even though I didn’t think I had hope for the future, it was there, working overtime to keep me alive.

Hope isn’t a miracle that saves you all by itself, but it does make sure you’re there to save yourself.

If hope had been shoved into my life, I wouldn’t have had to find it myself. It expedites the recovery and revival process of people. To become vibrant, I had to fight tooth and nail against myself to drag hope into my life, until I had enough to stand on in my own right.