Hope

Zac Stamp
Mrs. Boresen
Expos, period 4
Definition Essay
3/4/2011
Hope
In my life, the past few years, there has been one word that defined me and even my very existence and that word is hope. Hope in its noun form as defined by Dictionary.com is the feeling that what is wanted can be had, or that events will turn out for the best. Hope in the verb form of the word is defined as believing desiring or trusting that something will happen. I like to define the word very simply as trusting that things will be ok and that even though there are hard times in life there will also be better times. As Albert Einstein once said, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” Our world lives on hope. It lives on the dream for better times and the promise of something better.
The reason this word has so much meaning to me is that I have needed hope in my life. Two years ago I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. This is a disease that can cause excruciating pain and weaken the body beyond belief, and if left untreated can cause colon cancer the second most deadly kind of cancer in today’s world. For me this was a devastating blow, being a hard headed take on anything teenage football player. The idea of me bleeding internally and needing immediate medical attention was unimaginable. I was put on a number of treatments that seemed to work for a short time but these treatments only delayed the inevitable. On April 30, 2010 I was admitted to the urgent care with a 102 fever caused by dehydration, a direct result of my condition. At this point in time I was told that the inflammation in my colon was too severe, and my best option was to have my entire colon removed as soon as possible. This would happen in a three step process requiring three separate surgeries. I was freaked out about what was to come, but it was my only option if I was going to relieve the terrible pain that I had lived with up to that point in time. So we scheduled the surgeries that would consume The summmer of my junior year. In May, I had my first surgery. They disconnected my colon from the rest of my body and gave me a colostomy bag. This was honestly one of the hardest times in my life because I was mentally drained, stressed, and physically weak from the surgery process. At this point I was at a low in pain and feeling as if it would never end. The only thing that sustained me through that time in my life was of course family, but also the hope that someday I would feel better. This hope was so important to me, that when I felt there was no hope for me to ever be normal again, I had a mental break down. For me to keep going and working to get better I had to know that there was a light at the end of the tunnel I needed the dream of something besides pain. When I lost that dream ,even for just a little while, I lost hope and when I lost hope I became someone I did not know, someone severely depressed. That fact of no hope is hard to handle for anyone, and I was lucky that it lasted only a short while. A person with no hope is a person with no happiness.
Interesting enough the word hope originated in Greek times. The philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, took the position that Zeus, the god of all gods in Greek mythology, created hope so that no matter how much evil and torment a man endured he would not throw his life away. Instead, because of hope he would continue to torment himself again and again. From Friedrich’s point of view hope was actually the most evil of all evils because it prolongs a man’s torment (3.answers). This opinion fits with the ancient Greek fable about Pandora. In Greek mythology when Pandora opened Pandora’s Box she let out all evil including lust envy and greed. Hope was considered to be worst of all because its effect is far more powerful then any of the evils in the world. Hope can be defined in many different ways and, in Ancient Grease it was looked upon as something negative, but when studying this word I found an analogy that was intriguing to me. Consider for a moment a few prisoners of war in a ghastly filthy prisoner of war camp. The first prisoner has hope ,and never gives up hope and against all odds he plans and executes a successful escape. Now consider a second prisoner, a man who only waits wishes and prays for freedom, but never really has genuine hope that it is possible and consiquently never escapes. Now consider a third prisoner, who gives up all hope of freedom he becomes depressed, lifeless and dies in prison. There are many different views on hope, but in my life, and in lives of many people who have gone through hardships like mine, hope is not just important but essential.
Now consider your own life, I realize that everyone’s experiences are different, but imagine a life with no hope that means no dreams of better things like a promotion or that dream vacation. Without dreams there can be no goals nothing to shoot for therefore there would be no reason to strive for someting better no reason to try to achieve anything, and if there is nothing to strive for ,nothing to achieve is there really any reason to live your life at all? Refer back to the prisoners in the Prisoner of War Camp one that has true hope of escape in his heart and so he plans and against all odds achieves it, and another with absolutely no hope of freedom in him dies in prison. If there is any question on the importance of hope in life just ask yourself this question. Which prisoner would you rather be?
Bibliography
1."Hope | Define Hope at Dictionary.com." Dictionary.com | Free Online Dictionary for English Definitions. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. .
2. Einstein, Albert. "Famous Quotes." Find the Famous Quotes You Need, ThinkExist.com Quotations. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. .
3. Hope: Definition from Answers.com." Answers.com: Wiki Q&A Combined with Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Encyclopedias. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. .