Hope and the Present

Ying: How can we abandon hope? It's all we have.

Aang: I don't know. The monks used to say that hope is a distraction. So maybe we need to abandon it.

Katara: What are you talking about?

Aang: Hope isn't going to get us into Ba Sing Se. And it's not going to find Appa. We need to focus on what we're doing right now. And that's getting across this pass.

i used to think hope was something we just had to have, something we needed every day and something that is an integral part of our daily lives.

this quote really struck me. living as a 20-something year old, we have so many hopes. they can be called dreams, aspirations, wishes...hope wants a change. hope wants what we think is best for us and our lives. 

but maybe we give in too much to hope. maybe this hope involves planning, and planning takes away from the immediacy of life. not even when the current plan has ended do we start thinking about the 'next step'. hope causes us to do this because we feel that to have hope for the future, we need to be able to control it. maybe this isn't what we should do.

i'm not saying we totally give up hope, but we need to temper hope in our lives.

1. merely hoping won't change things, and makes it wishful thinking, devaluing our person and our potential.

2. hope takes us away from the present. the present is good because it is where you learn and grow through reflection.

3. too much time spent on hope might lead us to unproductive worrying instead of planning and taking concrete steps towards our goal.

how to balance hope and living then? when frivolous planning gets too much, we should take a step back and look at it from a wider angle, as a small part of the bigger journey of life. in this way, hope becomes a good tool, and helps us grow and mature into independence. from this same perspective, we should look at our current situation, our life, and appreciate it by seeing how it fits into our whole person and journey. appreciate that by being here, we are part of our own life. and thus, be able to enjoy the present. the here. the now.