Hopeless

I have been fairly into the word hope of late, but I thought I would look up hopeless today.  There were a number of different words used for it in various dictionaries. Like despairing.  One dictionary even covered “awful or incompetent.  Dreadful” and was looking at hopeless from a work done point of view.  But the dictionary definition I liked best was in Merriam-Webster and said, “no expectation of good or success.”
Why I like that one is it refers to expectation.  Hopeless to me is like seeing no way out.  All considered options are inadequate.
As anyone would gather from what I have said in the past, I consider no person hopeless.  I do not hold to anyone being a “hopeless case.”  Some scour the depths of depravity and treat others with distain.  But as they say, “where there is life, there is hope.”
Hopeless to me infers the inability to change.  Just because something is beyond conceiving to me, does not mean it cannot happen.  I saw it first-hand in Townsville.  There was a guy I thought was beyond change.  Yet he did change.  I was flabbergasted.   It happened years ago but I still remember it very clearly.
To me hopelessness is all about perception.  There are those (an increasing number) who give up on life.  Who imagine the world as a better place without them.  Yet I question that.  I appreciate that some paint themselves into a corner and see no way out.
But again, just because something is unseen does not mean it is not there.  When I walk a country road I may not see the lake until I turn the corner.  Yet the lake is there.  I just have not seen it yet.
To me hopelessness is not turning the corner.  It is imagining the way it is, is the only way it is.  It is giving up when a solution is there, but unseen as yet.
I know that life crowds in.  Sometimes the negatives are dwelt on and become huge and seemingly unpassable.  When I become fixated, I miss out on other things.  Generally, I have missed or chosen to ignore the escape routes.  There comes a time when problems and difficulties are all I see.  I do not see the fine weather after the storm.
I know that life can be complicated.  But complications are never all there is.  There is hope for the hopeless.