The Gamble
Sometimes Monday rolls around and I wonder if hope isn’t a cruel concept. I also wonder if from time to time I haven’t drifted into the lake of the pessimist for that very reason. You get your hopes up — wait in anticipation — dream a little — dream a lot — and then…..
Sometimes it’s immense heartbreak. Sometimes it’s just disappointment. Sometimes it’s losing faith in humanity. Sometimes it’s losing sight of goodness. All the time it just hurts.
And so, wading deep into pessimism is more logical. The cheer, the optimism, the dreams…..oftentimes the point of it all is fruitless so, why hope? If your expectations are low, they’re more likely to be met, OR surpassed. Right? And having high hopes…….There are very few people in this world that are completely devoted to meeting your expectations or making your dreams come true and finding them is worse than searching for a needle in a haystack — it’s a sprig of hay in a thorn bush if you ask me. Wading far into the pool where dreams don’t come true but you don’t actually dream anymore — maybe that’s a safer bet.
Sometimes I really hate feeling that way. I love to dream. Dreaming means I’m sleeping deep and deep sleep means I’m well and content and maybe even happy — stress-free. Dreaming is a kind of encouragement in the subconscious. It means we wake up to, well, hope. Hope is this terrible and wonderful little thing that keeps you fighting for whatever might be next — the kind of joy, maybe, that leads to that deep sleep where dreams happen so that you can wake up to hope the next morning and thus get caught in a cycle of “goodness.” But what a gamble…
I was never very good at blackjack. I liked it. Taking a chance on the next card was always a little bit of an adrenaline rush. But I almost always took a chance on the next card rather than just holding off and, usually, taking a chance just meant hitting too high and, well, disappointment. I wonder if hope isn’t just that gamble. Only every blue moon, is the risk a 21.
I could turn this. I could turn it to Jesus and talk about hope springing eternal. Sometimes it isn’t that, though. Sometimes it’s this incredibly secular concern which, I know, isn’t right. Turning to a hope that springs eternal would be smart. Throw all the cards on the table and nothing matters because Jesus always provides what’s right and it’s never a gamble and so forth and so on.
But sometimes, despite what my head knows, my heart doesn’t line up. Is the gamble ever worth it? Surely pessimism isn’t better. Rock meets hard place and I desperately try to push hope away to no avail. The optimist wants to dream — hoping for “goodness,” and the pessimist screams, “NO! Dreams just don’t come true!” Rock. Hard place.
Monday.
