Hope

For some reason, in recent months, I have thought and talked a lot about the concept of hope. Perhaps it was because I needed hope. Perhaps it was because my friends needed hope. Perhaps it was because I watched too many hours of Doctor Who which kind of centers around the theme of hope. Regardless it's been on my mind.

When you think about it, hope can sometimes be a rather illogical emotion. I mean, did Edison have any reason to believe that after failing to make a lightbulb hundreds of times, the next time would be a success? Yet I'm sure that each time he hoped his experiment would work. Did Fredrick Douglass have reason to hope he would escape slavery when he had surely seen many more people fail to do so than succeed? Yet hope he did and succeed he did. People hope to win the lottery. People hope to get a certain job. People hope the weather will change. People hope they will be healed from disease. Some of these examples may be based on the choices of the person (getting a certain job, for example) but some of them are entirely outside of our control.

So why do we continue to hope, even when all evidence would tell us it's useless? First of all, I think it is human nature to hope (which is why The Doctor loves humans so much, I think). President Uchtdorf says, "we learn to hope the same way we learn to walk--one step at a time." Just as we are naturally disposed to walk as children, we are naturally disposed to hope. Even when we have been miserable for weeks or months, we can't help thinking that there is a light at the end of the universe. We can't help believing that no trial can last forever; no problem cannot be fixed. This belief may be based partly on our experience (something going on forever is inconceivable to us), but more than that, I think we hope because we have to. And because even if our minds have forgotten, our spirits know that the confused and unhappy people we sometimes are on Earth is not who we are meant to be. We inherently know that there is a better world waiting for us. Every wrong will be made right. Every trial will end. Every pain will be replaced with joy because of He who is the source of all hope: our savior Jesus Christ.