Hope

​Merril put a song on her Facebook that I really love.  It is called Even If.  It highlights to me something I hold to dearly.
I reckon I am destined to go through stuff both good and bad.  Hence the title of the song “Even If.”  As it says, “It’s easy to sing, when there’s nothing to bring me down.”  For a lot of life, I am in cruise control.  Things are going well.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Things seem easy.  Even if they are hard, they are only a little bit hard.
“They say sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose.  Right now, I am losing bad.”  It happens.  I wish it did not, but it does.  Being in denial does not help.  It is tempting to paint something ugly with a nice coat, but it remains ugly.  Pressing my hands to my ears and shutting my eyes while I say la, la, la, la, la, la, changes nothing.  When I open my eyes again and lower my arms, the problem remains, and sometimes it is worse.
I am totally for being positive.  Seeing something in the best light.  But to me, one thing does not change.  The badness.  A bad situation does not become good by declaring it good.  That is, and always will be, a lie.
The song says, “always look on the bright side of life.”  I reckon it is a good thing if what I say helps me to feel better.  It is also positive to examine a situation and find the good points.  But to me my feelings are a part of me, rather than me.  To me it is like needing to pay $100 and only having $10.  I may make myself feel good about my $10 but it does not change the fact I need $100 and only have $10.
If I am given $100 that changes everything.  To me, that is what hope is all about.  But hope alone only goes so far.  It is what I hope in.  I can feel better with confidence, but it is misplaced unless my confidence is in a supplier that can deliver.
With this Covid-19 it is almost like it is hoping against hope.  Covid-19 alone is dire but so much else seems to be happening.  I saw on the news a hurricane hit a Greek resort.  A guy said he had been there over 30 years and never seen what happened.  Our bush fires were like they were out of left field.  So much has happened before, but it is like it is all happening at once these days.  So much that is hoped in is proving to be fallible.
It is one of the reasons I am so careful what I invest in these days.  History has shown that everything comes undone, and I cannot see why this time should be any different.
But the song is called “Even if.”  Sometimes things do not turn out the way I had them planned.  Sometimes situations do not change no matter how much I would like them to.  At that point I re-evaluate what my hope is in.  If it is something I have proven before, I can rest easier.  I don’t have the whole picture.  Maybe - just maybe, what is happening is for the best.