I certainly couldn't be classified as an optimistic person. Some days I'm not even sure I could be classed as a particularly "hopeful" person. My melancholic tendencies certainly propel me towards pessimism. There are a lot of things I don't believe in any more. There's quite a bit I've lost faith in. Years ago I let go of my belief in God. Some days I struggle to have faith in humanity. I'm not even sure that I still believe in "Love". But, I think in my own way I do still believe in hope, or maybe more specifically the resiliency of hope.

Austin Kleon writes that "hope is not about knowing how things will turn out - it is moving forward in the face of uncertainty. It's a way of dealing with uncertainty." " To have hope," Kleon goes on to say, " you must acknowledge that you don't know everything and you don't know what's going to happen".

Maybe the best we can do is get out of bed everyday and try to have hope. Maybe getting out of bed everyday is the highest form of hope, maybe that one brave act is the work that helps to create the conditions for the survival of hope. Maybe that minuscule bit of resilience is enough for hope to find a way to thrive.

If you're interested in purchasing one of the four prints created from Jim Martin's book, The Practical Meditation Journal, you can find them on the Unusual Buddha Website.

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