Hopelessness: How to deal with it

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Too often we come across people who are suffering from acute hopelessness. This is the feeling of utter despair, powerlessness and defeat. In such situations, for some individuals life is reduced to nothing, but a burden to carry for as long as they are in that unsavory situation. This article is intended for all those people who have lost faith in the brighter side of life.

Hope is strongest and almost fruitful if we are mindful of few basic rules of life. Life is a complex web of emotions, actions, wisdom, willingness, and skills. Each of these factors are so intertwined, and interdependent that one without the other has the capacity to create a deep void in the lives of people. For normal functioning of our lives, each of these components have to function as effectively, and efficiently as a well-oiled machine. In the course of life, and due to multiple reasons some of these elements go off balance sometimes, thus creating a situation of hopelessness and dejection. Subsequently, due to the presence of these factors in our lives, we undergo plethora of events, and incidents since birth until our death. Undoubtedly, hopelessness is a complex outcome of our emotions and environment, and a primary source of  modern day stress, discord, and disharmony. In modern world, there would hardly be any person who had not suffered some kind of hopelessness, and drudgery in their lives.

Hopelessness can agitate and trigger negative emotions in the minds of otherwise able bodied, financially, and intellectually endowed individuals. People can undergo and experience these emotions due to variety of factors such as job loss, failed relationships, bad past, lack of education, poor health, weak family support system, poor financial conditions, envy, and thoughts of powerlessness. However, not every person experiences hopelessness in the same manner. Hopelessness can incite bad, and destructive or extremely low self-evaluation, and self-esteem in the minds of many individuals. In extreme cases hopelessness can lead to deep depression and anxiety. It is extremely hard to deal with this situation, as it is a culmination of many elements; emotional, physical, financial, intellectual, societal and environmental. Undeniably, dealing with hopelessness is daunting; people lose faith in life, relationships and sometimes, in the entire fabric of society. However, with determination,  and willingness as well as proper planning, this problem can be minimized to a large extent.

Most of the individuals feel hopeless because they read too much in between the lines, and over generalize their experiences with the society. They have this habit of concluding their lives based on few bad experiences rather than looking at it as a sum total. They like to believe that the entire system is against them. This feeling can be overcome by self-introspection, and re-evaluation of the existing beliefs. It also requires a courage on the part of such individuals to practice openness, and conclude their experiences based on more open, and tolerant view of the world. It is imperative that once they accept the society with broader and more open mind their negative experiences would start to transform into more acceptable outcome, if not positive.

Accepting the realities of life and making the maximum out of it is the perfect way to overcome the feelings of hopelessness. Most of the time we are mentally agitated because we find our realities to be too far from our dreams. No one dreams small; we all have the habit of dreaming big, but the reality is more real than we initially would have conceived. The good practice would be– not to dream about something that is not achievable. It is advisable to keep track of your real talent, and try to excel, instead of trying to achieve something which is beyond your talent and expertise. Acceptance of truth is one of the major steps toward achieving true happiness and peace in life. I have seen people very closely, and their constant struggles with their dreams and realities. They are perpetually stressed out, and on an overdrive, trying to achieve something for which they have no skill, training or expertise. That results into nothing, but despair and failure which further adds to the already precarious situation. You might think that my thoughts are discouraging, but it’s very close to the actual realities of life.  I have always believed in positive lifestyle, but I am not a blind follower of false hopes. False hopes have the capacity to ruin people’s lives.

Example:

A person with no math skills aspiring to be an astrophysicist is a tall order.

By citing this examples I am simply trying to put forward one basic thing; don’t try to achieve something for which you have no natural talent or liking for. Instead, identify your talent, your peace, your calling, and work as hard as you can to get there.

If you have a natural talent for sociology, technology, and for that matter social work or anything that excites you; that would be the best option for you going forward.

Hope is Powerful, but hope without action is useless.

It is always wise not to be a blind follower of what others Say, Do or Think.

Evaluation of self, acceptance of your realities as well as the willingness to be an accomplished person with your own personal endeavor, and toil is the only way to realize your dreams. The crux of the matter is- be realistic, aware, knowledgeable, and work as hard as you can to achieve what was always your intention.

Hopelessness also comes from unsettling and temporary failures. Many individuals find it difficult to cope with such situations. The best way to deal with this is by sharing your past accomplishments with people who care, and completely understand you. Failures and successes of life are recurring events and we just cannot define ourselves based on those peaks and troughs. Each time we fail or something does not go as per plans, we should have this willingness to fight our own thoughts of dejection, and reinvent ourselves from that situation, and start again. Certainly, it is difficult to fight your own demons but family, and loved ones can be of immense help in such scenarios.

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Be good to yourself and the world. Life is full of surprises and it is revealing itself and unfolding its ways all the time in front of you.  Accept and show gratitude for being alive, for being healthy, and the fact that you have the capacity to think, analyze, love, cry and be yourself.

HOPELESSNESS IS NOTHING, BUT A GAP BETWEEN WHAT YOU HAVE AND WHAT YOU WANT.

Most of the miseries of life are caused by unexpected jolts and traumas. Therefore, to deal with them one must make peace with the situation and move along instead of slipping into the doldrums of negative thoughts. Death, disease, abject poverty, abuse, and handicap are some of the unsettling events of life which many individuals have to suffer each day everyday. It is the most difficult part of being alive, and being a part of a social structure. Truthfully, there is no one answer to these problems; the only way to deal with them as we encounter them is to try seeing what is the best option available for us. Understandably, it’s hard for a person to be hopeful, who has lost a loved one or someone who has been diagnosed with life threatening ailment; however, it’s not impossible. These situations call for infallible human spirit, and resilience in their full force in order to extract and enjoy the full potential of life and its offerings.

To defeat the doom and misery; the only way is to pay less attention to it.

Always hope for the best but don’t be foolish and naive. Take pride in yourself and your life. Celebrate your family, friends and your surroundings. Enjoy nature; the best gift that has been given to us. Beauty of nature has the power to take away most of your worries while you resign yourself to its glory. Although, for many people this idea would sound crazy, but it’s tried and tested and it works. That way you will learn to appreciate the surroundings. One positive thought can lead to another and yet another until you would have made peace with your environment. These are small practices that make a big difference in people’s lives.

This theory would increasingly appear impossible for people who are living their lives in abject poverty. For them life would appear almost worthless. The anger and pain that they have to go through in their day to day lives is impossible to describe. In this type of hopelessness, life appears nothing but a battle that is lost before it even started. However, there is hope. The human spirit is far greater than the social situation one finds themselves into. There is a way to get out of that misery –only and only if you are ready to run that extra mile, put in those extra hours, work harder than others, get that work done, and forsake your comfort zone-then it would be just a matter of time. It is not easy to overcome and dig out from poverty and misery, but not impossible either; the willingness and resilience as well as profound belief in yourself has to be there. The only person who can help you with your hopelessness is you and only you.

You are your sole supporter and you are your own cheer leader.

Family and loved ones will always be there to give you an extra hand and watch your back when needed. First you have to establish a trust with yourself and find that one thing which excites you and invigorates you.

Hopelessness amidst plenty:

This type of hopelessness is caused when some individuals have actually transformed most of their dreams into their living reality. They have it all and don’t know what to ask for. Sometimes they don’t know what more can they wish for. This type of hopelessness can be dangerous for them. Many A- list celebrities and wealthy individuals have succumbed to this type of hopelessness and have left us to ponder about the true core of the problem.

Whatever be the situation, when we remain grounded regardless of our status the negativity of hopelessness would not affect us much.

Conclusively, we are brought into this world when we are not even aware of our purpose and goals. However, as the life progresses we come to terms with the challenges of life and more or less harbor same aspirations and goals.  We all aspire and dream to have a wonderful life— that is full of health, wealth, success, wisdom and happiness. To some extent most of us get the satisfaction of experiencing all these drivers of life at some point—one way or the other. Mostly, life treats people fairly, and to me it’s a fair game. Life gives us whatever we work for and aspire to be, barring few exceptions. However, the gap between our expectations and realities somehow still remain at large; entrapping us into this web of negativity, where sometimes life does not appear in our favor, at least psychologically for some but in reality for many. The best idea is to be real, and think realistically keeping in mind that life is for living, and not throwing it away for some failed dreams or some failed relationships.  Those painful emotions can be overcome only by accepting that may be it was not meant for you to begin with. Instead of destroying your hard work, health and wisdom on those failures or gaps it’s wise to embrace life as it is, and create a new, and better life for yourself that ensures you the balance between your dreams and realities. Surprisingly, we all forget that we did not bring anything into this world, and would not be able to take anything out with us either. Why such a fuss then? Always remember- you get what you work for.

The human spirit is more resilient and adaptable than we would have thought. We should try to extract most of the better things of life by maintaining a positive and optimistic mental state. Hopelessness is a real feeling and can have deeper and more damaging effect on us and our psyche in the long run. However, inflated and manufactured hope is equally bad and damaging. It is not wrong to feel hopeless, but fake hope without action is also futile. Therefore, to enjoy the life in true sense of the term, we must accept everything that life has to offer with strength and resilience. We must also be relentless in our pursuit of excellence, knowledge, and humanity. In the end every effort should be made for personal self-growth, and expanding our vision with the idea of broadening our world view.Hope is good and we must hope for great things to happen to us, but we must be in good terms with our realities in order to move a step forward to be in touch with our hopes and dreams.

After all it is life, and it shows us what we want to see, and gives us what we are ready to take.

2 thoughts on “Hopelessness: How to deal with it

  1. Very wisely said that hope is a gap between what we have and what we want. For me …what I have I don’t want and what I want I dont know .I am hopeless.

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