A Fighter's Spirit

People that know me can attest that I have the heart of a warrior. But the truth is I have never stepped into a battle I thought I could win. Not once. Normally I assume I am going to lose the fight and don’t even bother. The only time I really step into the ring is when I know I must fight. Usually the issue is a hill I would rather die on than see myself walk away from. I fight because I must fight, but that doesn’t make me any less pessimistic. It creates an interesting churn of emotions in me. 

What is interesting about the whole thing is this: part of fighting is assuming you can win. It’s a necessary ingredient to even pick up your sword. Hope is the muscle we use to swing. If our hope dies, the fight is over. Hope is like the king in a chess game: take it, and it’s checkmate. I used to equate hope to optimism, believing that the way to get things done was to be a little delusional until you suddenly proved you weren’t. I lived like this until I encountered hope. It was then that I realized that the two are as different as night and day. 

Hope is a force of nature. Hope says “I know the odds are against me, but there’s still a chance, so I’m going for it!” Optimism says “my odds of winning are pretty good, so I can get it done!” Hope says “my odds of getting it done are pretty bad, but I’m doing it anyway.” Hope is a force. Optimism is an assessment. We talk about things like “getting your hopes up,” and “having your hopes dashed.” That’s not real hope, that’s a mix of optimism and expectation. That’s expecting a specific thing to happen. Hope is the driving force towards your goal.

I used to be afraid of hope because I used to think that hope was believing that a specific thing would happen. You can be a hopeful pessimist. You can know your odds aren’t great, but be driven to do something anyway. It’s a strange thing-to be hopefully pessimistic. What does that really look like? It’s hard to paint this picture, but I will say this much: it’s not relaxed. It’s not happily waltzing into the gunfire because it “won’t be that bad.” Oh, it will be bad! The pressure will be intense! But you can know that the battle might not be won, but march anyway. Hope is being driven to do the right thing with the expectation that some way, somehow, something good will come of your efforts.

If I’m being honest, I’m really in the ring today. I could easily tap out of this fight, but part of me is compelled to fight. Another part of me wonders why the heck I’m still here stressing about this. Part of me sees this as absurd. But I can’t deny the drive deep inside to fight. I don’t really know my odds, but I know I have to test them. I have to, because otherwise I’d be a fool for giving up and taking the hit. I know I can’t quit, but that doesn’t make this easy, or make my odds any better. I just know I have to step into the ring. 

It reminds me of the life of paul. If you read his story, it isn’t a story of wins as we might expect. He went up against the religious leaders of his day and didn’t have what we would call a victory. He was like a ping-pong ball, being tossed from jail cell to court house, to another jail cell, to being shipwrecked then ultimately to his own execution. I’m reminded of a quote I heard from manafest: sometimes you feel like you’re being buried, when you’re actually being planted. I’m encouraged to keep that force of hope burning like a candle inside of me, and to let it reach out in every direction like a tree spreading out its roots. I may not get the outcome I was hoping for, but maybe that wasn’t the one I was supposed to get. You never really know, I guess. All I know is I have to keep doing my best and praying for guidance. That’s all we can do, right?

I hope these words encourage you. Hopefully your season isn’t as rough as mine is. If it is, be encouraged in knowing that you’re not the only one to have it bad (and you probably aren’t the last.) It’ll be ok. You’ll get through this, and you’ll live to see another day.

Until next time

I love you

Cheers