Giving up Hope!

'I feel a lot more relaxed...now that I've given up hope!' This was the tongue-in-cheek phrase printed on a T-shirt in a local department store. Much like the anti-motivation posters, it was taking a shot at those who are deemed 'uber-optimistic.' If you ask me, the planet could use an overdose of optimism right now. Someone suggested that perhaps giving up hope is a way to minimise the impact, when what you hope for does not come to fruition. Lowering expectations may work in some scenarios, but not when it comes to one's general outlook on life.

Because many a truth is told in jest, I'm inclined to think that whoever penned that phrase (even if was just a clever way to sell a T-shirt) probably reflected the way a lot of people feel. It's true that hope does create a certain tension. Tension however can be both positive and negative. Ed de Bono refers to positive actions as PONS (the first and last 2 letters of both words, in case some of you were wondering). I wonder whether PONS couldn't also come to mean POsitive tensioNS, much like eustress.

If the status quo is what you've settled for, with goals relinquished and dreams banished to a far flung corner of your mind, then you may well feel more relaxed. You've just resigned from the tension, albeit a POsitive tensiON, but the real issue is how long this new found bliss will last. See, I believe that most of us on the planet are hard-wired to fulfil a divine purpose, and until we come to realise that purpose, we're square pegs in a round hole. It is also because the gap is sometimes so wide between one's current reality and what they envisage, that tension runs high. Let me encourage you to let hope runs it's course and let life find a way of delivering you to your destiny.