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The dictionary defines ‘hope’ as a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. The somewhat more archaic definition describes ‘hope’ as a feeling of trust. Shakespeare put it well: “Eating the air on promise of supply.” But what happens when our hopes are dashed? We may lose the feeling of trust in ourselves or in others. Do we become cynics and pessimists? Do we begin to believe that all is lost? That what is now will last forever and not change for the better? Do we begin to blame ourselves? What keeps us from becoming the cynic that H.L. Mencken described: “A man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”
The conflict between hope and cynicism is a very old one, and it is one that we must encounter each day. It has to do with how we deal with disappointments and uncertainties. Not going down the road to cynicism and becoming a pessimist has much to do with our ability to apply the skills and the attitudes of resilience. Hope and optimism are first cousins as are cynicism and pessimism.
How these two play out in our lives and the lives of those around us is a fascinating process and deserves our attention. Over the last couple of years, I spent some time looking at this process in my own life, both reflecting on it and writing about it. The product of that effort is a novel about the conflict between the two, First Night, which is available from the publisher, Reed Edwards Company at: www.reededwards.com.
