“That’s the problem with letting the light in—after it’s been taken away from you, it feels even darker than it was before”.
Kim Liggett
As an incoming freshman in college, I came with high expectations and optimism about my life. I thought that by the end of the year, I’d have the group of friends I always wanted and a solid outlook on where I wanted to be in life.
However, it’s funny how things never work out the way you want them to.
In fact, lately, there’s been this overwhelming feeling of hopelessness that bloomed inside of me. This inescapable feeling that is to hard to suppress. My freshman school year has been the most soul-crushing and mentally-draining one I’ve ever had. All the expectations and optimism I had at the beginning of the year slowly subsided and the little light I had burning inside me began to dim more and more everyday. I’ve been betrayed and hurt, lied to and manipulated all year and I have nothing to show for it but a shattered dream and a broken soul.
At one point in your life, you’ve had a moment where you’ve been devoid of passion, optimism, and hope for the future. Hope that you’d find your way in life. Hope that better days were to come. Hope that you’d find good-hearted and solid friends to surround themselves with. Hope that one day the the anger wouldn’t be so hot and your cheeks stained with tears every night. Hope that you wouldn’t push away the people you love because you can’t trust anyone after being betrayed and deeply hurt. Hope that the poison of hatred wouldn’t seep into you veins and change you from such a kind person to a heartless monster like the people who hurt you. Hope that whatever pain you’re going through now, it was sure to pass eventually.
Sometimes, hopelessness turns you apathetic, especially if you’re a good person. Kind people are always taken advantage of and manipulated by selfish people. They’re also the ones who always go through the hardest situations in life. More times than not, it’s good people who find themselves going through the dark tunnel of hopelessness. They may lose faith in the world, faith in humanity, faith in their loved ones, faith in fairness, and even faith in themselves.
With hopelessness, you eventually have to ask yourself the question, “how can I find hope again?”. The answer isn’t an easy one, but like all things in life, it depends on you. Hopelessness leads you down a dark hole and can turn you into someone you’re not. Life is hard, only because people make it. People will come into your life and steal your light to fuel their own. You’ll go through hard situations that will leave you drained and wondering if going on is even worth it. The cure to hopelessness is ironically hope. When devoid of passion and optimism, you find something new to cling to and bring you out that dark hole. Even the slightest bit of light can help you see through the dark tunnel of hopelessness, but if you decide to snuff it out, you’ll become a hopeless monster.
For me, what keeps me motivated is the fact that better days will come. Even if in this moment I feel as if the world is on my shoulders and I don’t have any passion for the future, I cling to the hope of a future where I will. With hopelessness, all you can do is have faith for better days because even if you’re hopeless now and feeling as if nothing will get better, remember that nothing lasts forever and life will get better. People may have hurt you and stolen your light, but what you decide to do is up to you. Maybe you can’t control how people treat you or getting the short-end of the stick in life, but staying hopeful is a choice you get to have.