NEVER GIVE UP HOPE.

"Hope is a thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings a tune without the words

And never stops -  at all.      Emily Dickinson

Image source

Hope is a grand word. It fills one with elevated feelings of perhaps rising to being one of the world's best.  I even appreciate the quote....."Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

When you have HOPE  one lives in the clouds of positive expectation, of something beautiful taking place. But sadly at the other end of the scale there is the negative word hopeless.

Did you grow up with the words "oh, you're just hopeless" ringing in your ears.

I heard it several times. 

MY older sister crushed me with the 'hopeless' word. She broke my three year old heart when she told me, " you're hopelessly too small to keep up with me and my friends." I was left on the edge of the forest watching as she and her bigger friends started to climb the steep rocky path behind the house........ condemned to being hopeless. Tears brimmed in my eyes.

"Oh just let me do it!" my mother would exclaim as I tried to pour the pancake batter into the frying pan. "you're hopelessly messy!"

My mathematics teacher reminded me weekly that my appreciation of algebraic formula was 'paltry to the point of being non existent....actually hopeless' and humbly I had to agree. Did it motivate me to do my homework? I sadly report....no. I was indeed hopeless at mathematics. Why? Partly because the teacher hadn't a clue how to engage my interest and mostly because during the droning, boring lessons I was away with the fairies dancing in a sunlit meadow..... dreaming.

Then there was the violin teacher who, after a year of tuition and wincing under the excruciating cat wailing chorus remarked, "listen dear, let's accept that you're hopeless on the violin,"  why don't you take up horse riding?"

And I did.

Image source

It was the best decision I made during the early years of my life.

From being hopeless at skipping, making lots of friends and lying, I at last was good at something "a natural," remarked my tutor with pride. Indeed hope sprang up in my chest and I thrived.

I found I had a natural affinity with horses. 

They liked me.  My beautiful horse called Wagga Wagga....Wags for short, and I became a legend in the farming district in the Drakensberg in South Africa. The big boys who rode in the open competition called Point to Point at first saw me as a squirt and an irritation. They probably labelled me 'hopeless'. I heard them say, "prize money is in the bag for one of us.....she's a non starter!"  But when Wags and I lined up  at the start we were poetry in motion from the crack of the pistol. 

Point to Point is a race across open countryside, through forest, up stony inclines, through valleys and always across a river. I was petite and I moulded to my swift and nimble horse. We avoided all the big cumbersome boys who rode clumsily and with a great deal of flapping arms, legs and noise.

Like a seal sliding through water, we avoided obstacles and flipped over ditches with great skill and at the end of the race we were regularly in the first three, and on several occasions, the winner, with a nice cash prize in the bank!

It still amuses me that out of being "utterly hopeless at the violin dear," I took up horse riding and found my passion, something that gave me hope. Whenever I rode Wags I was filled with hope that we would do well. And we often did. Hope changed the way I felt about myself and the way I behaved. I approached my whole life because I was good at something.

So whenever I see a tiny bird sitting on a twig loudly shouting his personal melody I remember Emily Dickinson and I am reminded that HOPE is a song that fills the heart of the searcher as he or she finds their passion. 

No matter who we are, where we live and what our dreams are, we are talented at something.

For me it was horse riding and long after I stopped riding competitively I was still a confident person and to this day I love my life. For you it might be the talent for banking.....or baking .....growing bananas.....who knows? 

I urge you to find your passion and grow yourself HOPEFUL.