A Personal Experience: Two Sides to the Coin of Hope

This post follows the previous discussion on hope, and is a personal experience of how hope for my future saved me and how the same hope nearly destroyed me later on. It’s a discussion about balancing expectations and having patience. As with most of these updates you can take what you want from it. 

In the first few months of some of my health struggles, winter 09/10, I often cast my mind to the future. I speculated that if my health continued to get worse what future would there be for me, and how would I work and earn money etc. In this speculation I thought how nice it would be to have some way of earning money doing something that was not physically or mentally demanding on my health. In the last month of 2009 I had the seemingly laughable thought of how good it would be to be able to write a book and become popular and earn money. I shook the idea off as even though I loved stories, I had no story related creativity and never had. I didn't know how I was going to make a future for myself and was quickly losing hope.

   At some point in early January, however, I was having an all too frequent sleepless night and in the early hours an idea for a story developed in my thoughts. The following day I re-shaped the idea and over the next few days wrote 20,000 words while at work and home. I remember the excitement and hope that beamed from me, knowing that perhaps this was the help I needed. So over the next 4 months I wrote when I was not sick or busy. It was actually towards the end, or just after those 4 months, that I lost hope and took the pills, but that’s because I let my hope run ahead of me and I exhausted myself to the point of feeling like I had no control over my life, and I wanted to escape. Once through that mistake I continued to hold on to the writing as a hope and I had came up with a story of 100,000 words. I was so elated to have created something I thought would be the answer to most of my struggles. The hope I had gained gave me a rock to tie myself to and it often kept me hopeful that one day in the future would be less painful.

   However, I was very naive and innocent in those first couple of years as I had no idea of how hard the publishing industry is to crack, and how there are hundreds and thousands of great stories that struggle to get notice so why should I consider myself unique. Even before finally realising this I had to accept my own weaknesses in writing stories. This was shown to me after the wonderful and objective feedback I received from friends and family. I was shown that due to my lack of writing experience and skills the story was very poor in its technical quality and structure, even if the ideas were good.

   This was a hard lesson, and many times I nearly lost hope as I felt my weaknesses made my new found creativity pointless. The hope I once had turned against me as I felt disappointed and useless. I did my best to work hard to improve my writing and hold onto the hope that this was just a set back and with more effort and time I could still achieve what I wanted and hoped for. The amount of re-writes and edits of my first story will attest to my initial weakness, but also my desire to improve and willingness to keep trying, but it was a daily struggle.

   At the same time I managed to get well enough to work just the right amount of hours to support myself and not get ill. I did my best to balance everything and as the months and years went by I had many learning experiences related to my story writing.

   Since the initial hope, nearly five years ago, it has been a war of hope and disappointment. Almost every time I hoped for things to work out with the book I have faced disappointment. The rejection from literary agents was a struggle at first and it was hard to stay positive. However, I learned to realise that there are many avenues to such goals and after a couple of experiences with small publishers I found a publisher that suited my story and they have helped me improve it for publication; it was published in August 2014, to much happiness. However, this is one rung on a long ladder and there's so much work to be done to market the book and find an audience.

     The little success I’ve had has been nice, and many don’t even get this far so I am grateful. Yet, it has been a painful process to have the same hope that kept me fighting for a better future, be the same hope that has led to so much disappointment and nearly destroyed me at times. To stop it destroying me it’s required a lot of self reflection and especially an open mind. Those two things have helped me put my efforts into a perspective that is true and realistic and not warped by my ignorance, naivety and high expectations. I’ve had to learn patience, balance, hard-work, adaptability, creativity in thought and goals, and that there are an enormous, perhaps infinite, number of paths to achieve my goals. I just have to keep trying and improving and not react badly or irrationally to any challenges that come along, easier said than done when such emotions and behaviours can be so intense. I have also had to learn that if there isn’t a path available at a certain time it might appear at a later point, so I’ve had to figure out what to do in the mean time. I've had to think what other things I can do to bring in the money that I need to live and find employment and that is not so demanding on my health. This attempt to find another path for work is ongoing and I have actually been fortunate to see a possible future career but I will discuss this in another post.

   

I will always promote hope and the strength it gives and the beautiful thing it is, but from my own experiences I will encourage people to be careful with it as there are two sides. It is a challenge to only let the positive side of the coin shine, as so many things can turn it over in a split second. Yet, with patience, self-control, reflection, honesty, a willingness to learn, and understanding, hope can always be a strength and help us face even the toughest of challenges. 

   How we actually learn these things and how to apply them is the more challenging task, but I’ll share my thoughts on this in a couple of posts. In it I’ll discuss some ways I’ve been able to develop the traits mentioned above and how I’ve learned to keep the negatives like disappointment at bay, but at the same time use positives such as hope to be my strength.

   The next update will be about the specifics of Mental and Physical Health and the relative nature it has to individuals.  

An after thought: There are two enemies to hope and if possible they should be kept in check at all times. These are Fear and Doubt and will be discussed in the future when I get around to sharing a more detailed account of my experiences with Phobias, Anxiety and Panic-Attacks.

Education:

I love many types of music but my favourite genre is Rock and Metal. The lyrics for, In Due Time, by, Killswitch Engage, fit in with this topic nicely.

I know such a music taste isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but please don’t miss judge me or the music (often it is given negative connotations). It has been an incredible positive influence in my life and I’m sure I’ll explain why in a post in the future.

"In Due Time"

Pacing aimlessly, 
With my mind in unrest
Unsure of what may come. 
What have I done to bring this down on me? 
Helpless to make this undone

All in due time, see the world through different eyes. 
All in due time, the shadows will give way to light. 

How much more can I give of myself,
as these walls close in on me? 
As I slip down into this despair
(into this despair), 
There is nothing to attain

What victory
(what victory) 
When my soul is weak,
(is weak)
where does my help come from? 

All in due time, see the world through different eyes. 
I see the world through different eyes.
All in due time, shadows will give way, give way to light. 

All that we suffer through leads to determination. 
The trials we all go through gives us the strength to carry on. 
Something within us burns, desire feeds the will to live. 
A reason to believe I will see redemption. 

All in due time, see the world through different eyes 
I see the world through different eyes 
All in due time, the shadows will give way to light. 
All in due time.

Fun:

A classic I’m sure you’ve seen before, but it’s so funny!! The end get’s me every time!!!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4