Hope: A Simple Definition

What do you think about when you hear the words COVID-19?

With the amount of time that has passed with this virus dominating the world, there’s nothing else but news about death after death or just about how bad the situation is in every single part of the world. I want to try something a little bit different; I want to try to show you how even during the darkest days, there is always that little bit of hope that things will get better or… a little bit more bearable.

Hope, isn’t it a funny word? One syllable, one word and four letters — yet, what does it even mean?

The way I see it, every single person out there will most definitely have a completely different meaning or perception of just that single word; but that single word, no matter how small it may seem — can have one of the largest impacts — not only on self but also to those around. Here’s what I mean.

G* is an individual who has been through her fair share of difficulties, as we all have — but hers is a story, not only of perseverance but of finding that hope we talked about, during a time when hope didn’t even seem like a possibility.

A graduate with a degree by 2015 and a wife by 2017, G thought life was going pretty great for her. That is until the reality of toxicity settled in. Her marriage was declining at a rapid rate and her mental health went along with it; and when your mental health starts to decline, you better strap on because it’s going to be a wild ride and for G, a wild ride it was indeed. To this day, she still blames herself for some things that may have resulted in the ending of her marriage but this is not what it is about.

For G, the steady twists of life started unfurling and by July of 2020 — G found herself divorced, unemployed, completely dependent on anyone but herself. Things started taking a toll on her, not just physically but mentally as well. By December 2020 she found refuge in living with her best friend and after three months, she decided that she had wasted enough of her time feeling sorry for herself; this is when she decided she would move to Thimphu and started looking for jobs to ease the financial burdens that she had.

Before all this, she found herself working many different kinds of jobs in all different kinds of fields, just trying to make ends meet — trying to make things a little bit more bearable but nothing was ever concrete, everything was just a waiting game and one question remained the same for her throughout, “How long will this last?”

Her saving grace was found in April of 2021 when 25 slots opened up for vacancies at AB Ventures, a private company in Thimphu. She saw the advertisement for the job vacancy while scrolling through Facebook, an endless routine, and the very next day — she sent in her application.

A few days later, G received a call that she believes, changed her life. G was shortlisted and then another few days of waiting in anticipation before she was informed that she had been selected as one of the 25 — out of 700 applicants. Not only was she selected for the post, but she was also given an apartment room to live in temporarily, by Father Kinley Tshering, the Executive Director of the company, until she can get back on her feet again.

I asked her what she felt or what exactly went through her mind when she got the news of her acceptance at the company and she responded with just five words, “I still have a chance”.

Her telling me this made me think about how difficult things had to have been for her to be able to get to the point where she thought “I don’t have a chance in this life anymore.”

G went on to tell me about how different things are for her now. She put a strong emphasis on how she learned so many lessons that she never would have learned had she not gone through the things that she did. Now, after taking the time and space to reflect on everything that happened in her life, she assures that her perspective on life and the way situations play out are completely different than they would have been exactly one year ago. She has a renewed sense of optimism and as she says,

“There’s always time to make a change. Your past does not need you. Be in the present. Your future needs you.”

One thing I truly admire about G is how despite the many obstacles that were placed in her way, despite things not working out over and over again; she always found it within herself to be able to keep going. Even at her lowest, (whether it was consciously or subconsciously) she had the hope that she would be able to find her way out of the darkness and even though that hope was just a spark, it was enough to keep her going; and that in itself was her definition of this small, four-letter word.

“Hope is when you can believe in yourself” — G

*the name of the individual has not been mentioned in order to protect their privacy.

#abventures #bhutan #hope