Anger, jealousy, joy, hurt, love, comfort, it all started fluttering out of the box. Confounded Pandora closed the lid of the box. It was too late. The curse of Zeus and curiosity of Pandora left humanity helpless. Vigilant Pandora closed lid before one thing could fly away from the box. HOPE.
The story of Pandora depicts the helpless nature of human beings, but one thing we control is hope. Well, we hope even when sometimes we are hopeless. That’s the charm of hope. It’s always there in the box.“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” Martin Luther King Jr.
When people come to psychotherapists usually they have done it all. They have been to the mountains, different cults, met the gurus, Bua, Baba. Been there, done that. In depression, or other disorders what we first work on is hope. Yes, you can get better. Hope plays an important role in therapy. If you can reach till hope, you can reach everywhere. Let’s understand hope better technically there are many definitions of hope. I have given both definitions at the end, people with research background read it**. I don’t want readers to lose hope by reading the definition so made a simple chart out of it. Hope consists of three things
1) Goal– Goal forms an important ingredient. A goal which has enough value to occupy our conscious thoughts. Hopeful goals have some uncertainty. Look for that.
2) Routes – Hope also consists of different pathways and routes to achieve the goal. If we can’t see the routes hopes starts to fade away.
3) Motivation – Important part of hope is motivated to take on life’s Goals. Regardless of barriers. So even if we don’t look at hope every day in these three terms, but we wake up with hope. It forms an important part of our living. What keeps us alive more than oxygen blood or perhaps even love is hope.