Hope is like a dangerous animal

(Please note that my views including this post are my personal views with no link to my professional career)

Published as a series of The Leadership Chronicles #theleadershipchronicles

Imagine a horse that is as powerful and fast as they come. This horse can take you far and to the places where you would not be able to reach otherwise. We all know that only a worthy rider would be able to reach destinations while riding such horse. If an untrained person tried to reach destinations on this horse, s/he would fall. Such fall may cause damage that walking on foot may have never caused. We all know this through common learning. Why do we forget this whole hypothesis when we ride our own horse of hope? Probably we don’t realize that hope is such a horse.

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Hope is dangerous because it is like a fast and powerful horse. It can help reach places if the person who rides on it is well trained. Otherwise, it would cause damage to those who want to achieve higher places. Most people who are damaged had a fall while riding the horse of hope. As a poet once said that it is only the warriors that fall, not the kid that cannot walk. A true warrior will rise, and ride again. A kid would fall and never return to ride the horse.

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In my opinion, this is the single largest reason of frustration in my social circles. Many of the great and hard-working people I know have tried to ride this horse. They wanted to achieve big not for themselves for others, but they fell. They lost hope and with it, all the optimism and the energy to ride any horse. They end up leaving their jobs, families, friends, communities, and professional lives just because they fell while riding a fast horse.

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In the beginning, I thought that we people were not to blame, as we were only sincere, hard-working, and aspiring people. Most of us left our comfortable lives just to excel hoping that we would cause the change. Causing change in people around was our mission. But, when it starts, we never realize that causing change in people is the most difficult journey for any human being. It is a noble pursuit but involves so many obstacles and mountains that only a skillful rider can overcome.

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Theory and philosophers of the highest order have preached the readers to remain clung to hope in life. I started wondering if hope is what causes so much damage, then why rely on it. If people rode a slower horse or walked by foot, they would have still reached somewhere. Just because they were motivated to reach difficult places for which they were made to ride a dangerous horse (anything fast and powerful is dangerous for untrained. For example, a fast plane is dangerous, a slow cart is not), they rode, they fell, and they were damaged. This was a question that has kept me awake many a times in life. Honestly, there has been a time when this question makes so much sense to so many of us. Especially to those amongst us, who have suffered some real damage while we rode such horse.

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I really have not experienced an answer to that myself, but I have realized that no matter how little my success has been to you, it has been a result of riding such horse only. In the beginning, I was not worthy of riding such horse. However, I was fortunate, and I started believing that I was worthy of causing bigger impacts (since I was wishful, it was natural to be impatient). The fact was that the journey till that time was fruitful because I was at the right place at the right time. But the early success made me believe that I could achieve anything, and I started dreaming about my abilities to ride any horse in the world. That belief was noble, but I was not competent enough. In summary, I started riding this horse because I was fortunate. If only I was worthy too, I would have reached places then. But who cares about rigor when time is on their side! So, I started the journey believing that I would succeed.

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Good times make us perceive that we are the best (a surrogate of us considering us worthy at times), and perception become our reality – a wrong reality that would be broken like a glass whenever we fall. But it would only be the fall that would wake us up from this misplaced reality and bring actual reality back to us. I too fell, and it was only my fall that shook me at my core and damaged me. But initially, I did not blame my competence.

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The first reaction while we fall is to blame the horse or the mountains. I started blaming the stakeholders around me (examples of blame: the world is like this, they don’t want change, and they don’t deserve it). Having blamed the world, I started questioning the deep philosophy of cherishing hope as an energy that thrives progress. And quite frankly, if it was not for my association with such philosophers, I would have still blamed people and the hope itself.

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But then I read the story of Babar. The maker of the empire that would form world’s most powerful country for centuries. I am sure you all know that Babar was a lost general who had one of the greatest falls as he exiled from his homeland. He was competent (probably one the most brilliant generals of his time), and he stuck to a positive winning attitude, and he ended up forming an empire much bigger than the one he was defeated to exile from. But we never realize that it was his fall that led to his exile, and his hope that led to his glory. Without this hope, he would have never made into popular history. ???

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There are so many stories in everyday life where we read how true leaders fell and they fell many a times. The moral of such stories mostly is they made books and we read about them because they had hope and they were perseverant. And the basic energy that makes one perseverant in the time of real crisis is having hope. I cannot know of a situation where one can show perseverance without clinging to hope. Perseverance that will help us become worthy, one day.

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I know that we all have a long way to go to bring life to our dreams – the brilliant dreams we had when we were up (and not while we were asleep) at night. Many of us have ridden the horse and fallen and many of us have decided to leave the pursuit of our dreams. A part of me believes that it was probably our own merit that failed us. I wish to know there is hope for all of us.

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If we cling to the rope of hope, even if we don’t succeed in making history, at least we will go down in flames. I even consider this a much better end than the one waited in despair.?