Hope

"Hope is a dangerous thing." This is one of the most memorable things that I have ever heard. Morgan Freeman said it to Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption. Strange as it may sound, he was completely right. Hope is a dangerous thing. It can either put our heads in the clouds or it can help us rise above them and soar with the eagles. What kills our hope though? A dream deferred? A dream denied? No dreams at all? What gives our hope strength? A dream realized? It's hard to say exactly but one thing is sure, Red thought that hope would kill him. In fact, it saved his life. He hoped, but he also acted on it. His hope...gave him wings.

When does hope stop being something we hold dear and become something we use for action? I hoped this week, that I would hear from some of the jobs I'd applied for, the law schools I'd applied to and I did. The problem? I only hoped that I would. I didn't hope their responses would be in my favor or that I would get what it was that I hoped for. My hope didn't give me wings, it only fueled the fire. I have to take action in order to get what I want. Hope will inspire me and keep me going -- it will not do the work for me. So I charge you: hope, but do the work that keeps your hope afloat! You may find that at the end of the road, in your darkest hours your hope was what motivated you every step of the way.

Beginnings

In three weeks, I will have earned a Master's degree. It's an exciting achievement that has left me, frankly, scared to death. When I began graduate school in the fall of 2008, I had no idea that the journey I was embarking on would be one of the best ventures of my life. Here I was cruising along through coursework and finally, my Master's thesis. This week, when I completed my thesis and the last "i" was dotted and the last "t" crossed, I felt this inexplicable calm come over me. (Well not inexplicable, clearly I was relieved that I had finally finished the darn thing.) But more than that, I realized that at the end of every beginning is another beginning. Don't like my tautology? Ok, basically...life is full of beginnings. When you've reached an end, it's time to begin anew again. Sometimes it's scary, like if you get a divorce and have to start over. How on earth will you find yourself without your spouse? When you lose a job, where do you begin again?

Every moment of everyday provides us an opportunity to build the strength within ourselves so we can find the answers when we face life's biggest challenges. Yes, endings are sad and beginnings can be scary, but between each beginning is a chance to grow into the kind of person that is prepared to face an end. But what if it's unexpected? Even still, make each moment in your life count so much that if the bottom does fall out, you'll be ready to face the challenge head on. While another ending for me is forthcoming, the prospect of a new beginning has me more excited than scared.