What Are You Hoping For?

“Oh, I hope everything goes well.”

“I hope I do well in my exams.”

“I hope he forgives me.”

“I hope she understands.”

“I hope nothing goes wrong on the big day.”

“I hope I made the right decision.”

If you think about it…

We use the word hope almost every single day.

Without even noticing.

But have you ever stopped and asked yourself—

What exactly is hope?

Is it a wish?

A prayer?

A manifestation?

Or simply our way of making peace with an uncertain future?

I still don’t know the exact definition of manifestation.

But I’ve always imagined it as believing in something so deeply that you somehow begin to act as if it’s already possible.

Maybe the universe helps.

Maybe it doesn’t.

Maybe hope changes the universe.

Or maybe it changes us.

I hope for a better tomorrow.

I hope I’m in a better place mentally than I am today.

I hope I become wiser.

Kinder.

A little more patient.

A little less afraid.

But then I came across a thought that completely stopped me.

What if today is already the best day of my life?

I have no idea what tomorrow looks like.

None of us do.

So what exactly am I hoping for?

Something that doesn’t exist yet.

A future that hasn’t happened.

A version of life I’ve imagined inside my head.

Isn’t that strange?

We spend so much time living in tomorrow…

That we sometimes forget today is the only thing that’s actually real.

Of course, I can prepare for tomorrow.

I should.

I can work hard.

Learn new things.

Take better decisions.

But can I control tomorrow?

Not really.

So where does hope fit into all of this?

Scientists have spent years trying to understand hope.

Psychologist Charles Snyder described hope not as wishful thinking, but as a combination of two things—having meaningful goals and believing that you can find a way to reach them. According to his theory, hope isn’t passive. It pushes us to keep moving even when the path isn’t obvious.

I found that comforting.

Because it means hope isn’t just waiting for life to get better.

It’s participating in making it better.

Then I stumbled upon Friedrich Nietzsche.

And, as expected, he had a completely different opinion.

He believed hope could be dangerous.

That it sometimes keeps people waiting for a better tomorrow instead of accepting reality today.

Instead of hoping for life to change, he encouraged us to embrace life exactly as it is—a philosophy he called Amor Fati, or the love of one’s fate.

And just when I thought I had heard every perspective…

Aristotle quietly entered the conversation.

He believed that we cannot truly hope unless we have also experienced fear.

Think about that for a second.

You only hope because there is a possibility that things might not go your way.

If success were guaranteed…

Hope wouldn’t exist.

Hope only exists because uncertainty exists.

Somehow, I find that beautiful.

Maybe hope isn’t about believing everything will work out.

Maybe it’s about finding the courage to keep walking even when you don’t know how the story ends.

Maybe that’s why humans have survived for so long.

Parents hope for a better future for their children.

Students hope their hard work pays off.

Patients hope they’ll recover.

Writers hope their words reach someone.

We continue planting seeds whose trees we may never sit beneath.

There is something profoundly human about that.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that hope isn’t really about tomorrow.

It’s about how we choose to live today.

Because when we hope, we wake up.

We try again.

We apologise.

We apply for one more job.

We write one more page.

We love again after heartbreak.

Perhaps hope isn’t asking the universe to change our life.

Perhaps it’s reminding ourselves that life is still worth showing up for.

So let me ask you something.

What are you hoping for today?

And what were you hoping for yesterday?

Did life disappoint you because it didn’t happen?

Or did it quietly take you somewhere you never expected to go?

I don’t know if every hope comes true.

But maybe that’s not the point.

Maybe hope was never meant to predict the future.

Maybe it simply gives us enough courage to walk towards it.

Anindita Rath
@scrambledwriter

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