The Myth of An Impossible Hope

Day 13 of Project 21 Days of Hope

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Almost everyone of us has seen and remembers The Shawshank Redemption. Based on a Stephen King novella, it is a movie that is in essence an epic homage to the power of hope.

There are few places as desolate and devoid of hope as a prison. And if you have seen the movie, you’d remember that Andy Dufresne is subjected to not just unfair charges but impossibly harsh conditions, assault and exploitation.

If there were one character who was allowed to despair, it’d be Andy Dufresne.

But he doesn’t. He not just finds hope where none exists but also manages to keep it for two long, hard decades. Until finally, his fight pays back and his hope is richly rewarded with the one thing he truly valued — freedom.

Andy Dufresne may be a fictional character, but the story of hope surviving all odds is a tale as old as time. People in the hospital corridors with their loved ones fighting for life, victims of war crimes, refugees in terror torn areas, patients fighting battles against incurable diseases — all kinds of survivors of unimaginable tragedies and horrors seem to have one thing in common.

Hope.

Dufresne’s story reminds and reinforces an important lesson that we all can do well to remember.

Hope can survive anything.

There are no excuses, no suffering, no pain, no tragedy big enough to eliminate hope completely. Hope always survives. Like Dufresne, we may need to find it over and over and over again. We may need to push hard against people and circumstances that want us to give up. We may need to fight and fight hard to find and keep that hope.

But the hope itself is never lost. It is always there, buried under the weight of our world, waiting to be found.

The fight for that hope may be long and hard. The timelines may be long and excruciating. The wait may seem never ending. But it is always worthwhile.

Because in the end, hope always wins.

Hope doesn’t fail us. We fail hope. And those who don’t, those who manage to stick around irrespective of how unfair the life has been to them, much like Dufresne, in the end, they win.

Until next time

Keep fighting for hope!