What really matters!

I watched with interest the scores of hurting investors who waited with baited breath, some with untamed expressions of anger, to witness the outcome of the infamous Bernie Madoff’s trial. What would become of this fraudster who stole not just from the rich, not even just from the poor, but from charities who assist the poor? A reflective looking, distinguished gentleman was caught on camera saying that he’d be okay just as long as he still had ‘the things that really mattered.’ I noted that in his brief itemised list, nothing was brick and mortar, nothing was quantifiable in dollars and cents. It was the air he breathed each morning, the eyes of a long-staying love he stared into at night.

Hope communicates the strong message that even when you lose everything, you’ve really lost nothing if you haven’t lost ‘what really matters.' The question to then ask is what does matter to you? I recall an acquaintance saying, in defence of an unpopular decision he’d made following the weight of his conviction, that those who mattered didn’t mind and those who minded did not matter.

It is said of great sports men and women that when the odds are stacked against them, when the game feels near it’s close, and all they’ve fought for, worked for, is at risk of taking flight, they dig deep. In these highly unusual times, there is no doubt that it may be required of us to dig deep; deep into the recesses of our soul, claiming back every ounce of hope that’s eluded our grasp, claiming back our strength which comes from such hope. It may be that we need to stretch our every faculty, refusing despair the right to make a mockery of our hope, a sham of our desire to stand, after having done all.

Those who choose hope are not simply selecting the ‘don’t–give-up’ tab; rather they’re standing shoulder with others who have resolved to not shrink from the onslaught of despair, no matter how savage the attack. They pay a price-the price of surrendering their right to a quick closure. Perhaps this is the ‘pay-off for despair’ some say-that you get to close the chapter yourself; that you get to keep what dignity you have left-take charge and not make a fool of yourself by being the ultimate pragmatist! Nothing like those teary-eyed dreamers, they say, who cling on to what remnants of hope they have left; nothing like those who are keen to forgive their debtors in hope that their debtors will too find grace. Hope knows that the story is not over until the author sits his pen down, and concludes in a suitable fashion this epic that is life.