Hope, Faith, and Action – Stream of Conciousness Saturday #SoCS

Hope without action is just a wish.

And unlikely to happen. Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings, “Wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up faster.”

A rare semi-deep thought for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “hope.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

Well, maybe that’s a little too rough of a treatment of such a gentle, aspirational word. A hopeful attitude combined with a positive attitude can help form habits of a positive mentality.

Hope can also be delusional — hoping for a change that’s not going to come.

Hope can propel you to achieving greatness. Hope can also keep you chained.

It’s also a cheesy name (IMO), though Hope Hicks was a fine soccer goalie.

Hadn’t really ever thought of “hope” in the way above until this morning’s prompt. I’ve been working on improving a number of personal habits around health and just getting shit done. Having done this off and on, though never seriously enough, over the last 20-odd years, hoping to improve has to be backed by a rock solid belief that you can and will improve.

Hoping for the best isn’t enough. You have to believe. As a pointless aside here, I continue to hope that NFL refs will call games equally, but that hope seems futile. And, yes, I will remain bitter about the blown call against the Rams that kept Brees and the Saints from another Superbowl until the day I die. If there’s something after this, then then too.

Hope can be an innefective substitute for personal change.

I hope I’ll have a good workout is worthless. I will have a good workout isn’t. Just that shift in a single word can have a cascading effect on how you view the world.

You move from a passive to an active participant in your life. You aren’t hoping to improve; you’re actively working on that improvement.

I find over the years that it’s not a word I use very often and usually related to a movie or art exhibit or something like that. I hope that the movie is going to be good.

I used to say things like “I hope I’ll get all my work done.” That ain’t getting it done. Hope is a wishy-washy word to use there and nearly guaranteed to have you hoping you can catch up over the weekend.

That said, having hope, in the sense of using the word as a proxy for faith (in yourself, not in a higher power, whatever you want to call her) can form a bedrock sense of optimism and possibility to help you continue to change and improve throughout your life.

Aaaaand now I have George Michael’s “Faith” stuck in my head. I still love that album. I’d never really listened to the lyrics until a few years ago. It’s a song about hope and a belief that you need to wait for a love that’s right for you. Settling in love is a loser’s game. and it’s a hopeful song

Before this river becomes an ocean
Before you throw my heart back on the floor
Oh, baby, I reconsider my foolish notion
Well, I need someone to hold me but I’ll wait for somethin’ more

George Michael, Faith

Oddly enough, even though I’ve had relationships with two women I loved deeply end, each in their own painful way, I still have faith that “somethin’ more” is out there. Though, gotta say, COVID, working from home full-time, and inate shyness ain’t helping! And, e-fucking-gads, but online dating is painful, but that’s a blog for a different day.

Today’s post brought to you by The Foundation, a great album by The Zack Brown Band — perhaps the best live band I’ve seen. Who doesn’t like Chicken Fried. And Highway 20 Ride can hit divorced parents with children hard when one is feeling melancholy. One final thought on hope, I do hope that people stuck with the belief that “music was better in insert your arbitrary decade here” open their ears to all the great new music produced every year. Having a favorite decade or genre, that’s cool. Saying that new music sucks . . . well, that’s just sad.