Hope

One of my favorite songs out now is "Hope" by Jack Johnson. There is a line in the song that reads:

Its gonna get that the best of you

Its gonna lift you up and let you down

It will defeat you then teach you to get back up

After it takes all that

You learn to love

To me, that line, and the whole song, speak directly to life. It's so true that life has a way of lifting you and then letting you down until you end up feeling defeated afterward. But...do you end up getting back up? It sometimes seems like an eternity from the point of the actual let down to the point where you decide to get back up. In that period of time, emotions, fear, frustration, tiredness, insecurities...I could go on and on...have a way of being the main focus of life. It's often difficult to keep the focus that those things are only temporary. You think because of the disappointment, you've been robbed, but the place to look is beyond and not at.

These past few days have been toughies for me. I've sat staring into space wondering how I was going to make it another day. My emotions have been reeking havoc on me and leaving me to feel like I was a defeated miniature version of me. Somewhere in that state, I found the grain of hope big enough to motivate me out. I knew I could not waddle in that place for too long. It sucks the very light and life out of you.

Another line:

The shadow is on the move

And maybe you should be moving too

Before it takes away all that you learned to love

It will defeat you and then teach you to get back up

Cause you don't

Always

Have to hold your head

Higher than your heart

There is the hope. There is the place that you get back up. There is the place where the spark ignites and you say, "NO, I will not let you take away what I know as love." Sometimes it is not easy to understand just why you become so defeated. It often feels like a spin. Once you land you can't help but ask yourself how you got there. Sometimes I drive myself mad trying to find out. I tell myself to not dwell on it for too long, though, because I then can then look forward to the mysterious way it always pulls me out. That thing that motivates is sometimes not easily seen. So just let it rest, I tell myself, and learn and grow from it. The flip side of that is - it would be such a wise thing to gain the knowledge and wisdom for the next time so you don't repeat the very thing that gets you in defeat mode. That could very well be what this song is saying - "after it takes away all that you learn to love." Could it be that I'm loving the wrong things? Could they be responsible for the tailspins? There is good and bad in that line, I believe.

Another line:

It will teach you to love what you're afraid of

After it takes away all that

You learn to love

But you don't

Always

Have to hold your head

Higher than your heart

How many times do our heads get in the way from what our hearts are telling us. I know from personal experience that I have pushed aside what my heart said and gone with my head. The heart is where the hope is. Even when things don't seem to make sense when you first look at them, when you go with your heart, the hope and faith that is involved seems to make a way.

A definition for hope is: the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. That feeling is when the grasp becomes tight and you don't want to let go for anything in the world. That is what hope is for me. Even the smallest grasp can keep you dangling and holding, just long enough to pull you over. That's what I love about hope - it doesn't take too much of it to keep you alive. But when it is all said and done, the payoff is doubled, even trippled of what the little shred was that you were holding on with.

Today I found the strength to get back up. I don't know where it came from, but I grasped on as tight as I could and felt myself rising higher and higher until I came to the place that I was over the wall...over the hurdle of constant emotions. Now I can look forward to the payoff...after I get some rest, that is.

On a side note, I find it inspiring that my grandmother's (who had one of the greatest hearts I've ever known) name was Hope. She taught me a lot about life and love. I think she'd be here cheering me on now and pointing to the line telling me to keep my my heart above my head.