Day 6 - I am grateful for HOPE.
I have been through times where I felt totally hopeless, that's why by now I very much cherish this wonderful, strength-giving feeling that can help you
get back up after falling. One of my favorite citations is about it, from Vaclav Havel:
Hope is not the belief in happy endings. Hope is the conviction that something makes sense, no matter how it ends. (I hope I translated that correctly...)
As long as things are moving in the direction and there is a possibility of
getting better - even if ever so slightly! - there is reason for hope. Without the ability to hope for improvement even in bad situations, humanity would probably not have made the progress we did. These days, sometimes when looking at the state of the world and the daily news, it's kind of hard to keep it up and
hope for the future, but then I try to remind myself that our species is able to achieve so much in little time and I remember how much progress was made just in the last 100 years. For example, when my grandmother was born, females were not allowed to vote and now we have a female chancellor here in Germany and a female head of commission in the EU (and just look at Finland's new government which was already mentioned in this thread).
(
Here is a song I like to listen to to cheer me up and remind me of how much we've gained since the sixties where the musical is set.)
Star Trek spread hope in a time where the cooperation of Americans, Russians, Japanese, (black) females and aliens must have seemed like an impossible dream.
Spartacus rose up, Gandhi marched, Rosa Parks kept seated, the Stonewall riot started and nowadays people are on strike every Friday - all because of
hope.
Humanity needs dreamers and people who dare to fight for what they hope for, no matter how unlikely it seems.
I am endlessly grateful for the power of hope to ignite change for the better.
Hopeful, hippiepunk.