Hope Is The New Black

 Consider this your Monday morning pep talk. 

Hope: to expect with confidence (Merriam Webster)

We have each felt it. All of humanity since the creation of dreams. Hope. It elevates and stabs simultaneously. The desire for something to come. The expectation of an unfulfilled promise or destiny. Or perhaps simply a wish. Despite the size or seeming significance, our lives somehow hang in the balance of this anticipation of the things we are waiting for.

The belief that we are made for SOMETHING BIGGER. Something bigger than this pain, this fleeting joy, this small thinking and this box which can no longer hold all the parts of us. Something meaningful that makes a difference and does a small part to change the world. We hope that there is more to our lives than where we are right now.

We hope our dreams were really worth risking on. That we won’t be left with bitterness in one hand and a stack of bounced checks in the other. That love would really last and our imaginations would craft beautiful, safe places for us. That despite the opposition, all of our shots would be a bullseye. 

Hope goes with everything. It’s the new black. —> click to tweet

If we are going to really expect good things with confidence then we have to grab onto hope with both hands. An all in kind of commitment.

Just like our ambitions, we have to invest in hope.

Investing in hope will cost you. It will cost you the recurring dread, the excuses you replay, and your list of failures. Hope will require you give up your fear of failing and all the ways you justify your wounds. Investing in hope will cost you all of your mediocre living.

There are the obvious upsides to hope.

Some days hope is like a peppy Ellie Goulding song that makes you want to roll down your windows and drive until you land in a new city. A place that has been waiting for you to arrive since it was built. A place that you somehow intuitively know your way around in already. Hope makes us want to jump ’cause we believe where we land is gonna be better.

There are also painful sides to hope.

In fact, hope hurts. 

A friend of mine recently lost her daughter. She isn’t trying to conquer the world right now, she is just trying wake up in the morning and somehow stumble through the day without breaking too badly before nightfall. With heartache this heavy, her hope is to be able to breathe. To expect with confidence that someday, the weight will be lighter and easier to manage.

Hope is just like the color black. It goes with everything. The joyful weddings and the crushing funerals. Hope is always the best accessory regardless the scenario.

Situations, projections and fears don’t matter. If you feel like the wicked witch or the fairest of them all – you can put on hope. It looks good on you. Hope brings out the best parts of who you were meant to be and calls you out of all your excuses.

One of my favorite Bible verses says, “Those who hope in the Lord will not be disappointed.” (Psalm 25:3)

Whether this Monday finds you fist-bumping at all the possibilities or drenched in self-doubt…it doesn’t really matter. Those things ebb and flow. Hope doesn’t. Hope is the rock, the stability, the center.

Go ahead. Invest in it. Hope is the new black.

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