Tapsearch Com EditorHope and Despair
Link: www.therationale.com
By Ray Tapajna, continuing the study of personality and character for sake of self-improvement based on our notes from Father McQuade SJ JCU courseHOPE and DESPAIR
In his course Personality and Character, Father McQuade designates hope and despair as the first pair of emergency emotions and how we can make sure hope and not despair will be the dominant emotion of our lives. Again the answer is a realistic reasonable one.
Hope is an emotion in the expectation of a desired good which is considered to be obtainable. Despair is the opposite. It is an emotion generated by the absence of attaining a desired good and by a firm conviction that the good is unobtainable. Despair is about something that is missing and not really part of our lives.
Hope and despair may be habitual emotional state of a person with just the results one would naturally expect their personality to produce. One who lives with hope being predominant, will be active, dynamic and noble in mind. One who is characterized by despair will be sluggish, bored an futile. It is true that one who lives with hope may never experience the joy of possesing the desired good, but is also true the person who lives in despair cuts off the possibilities of possessing a good.
Happiness depends on a reasonable understanding of what is unttainable in the way we live our lives. For example, a person cannot expect to be married and not married at the same time. If a person wants it both ways, they are doomed to ultimate despair.
A person can not pursue a life where their IQ and aptitudes do not match, but they can use their rational judgement to live what is possible and even find ways to improve any conditions related to a low IQ or low evaluation. They can increase their skill level in more ways than just one. Reasonable hope can show the way. A person can realize that the circumstances conditioning their lives can be altered. Between the optimism and pessism there lies the objectivity of moderate realism. Finding that balance an attractive personality will be revealed.
In our times there may be too many tests and evaluations that 'curse' a person. We even can find someone whose IQ can change 30 points or so. We know many that hone their skills as a result of part of their abilities being not being up to par and many will upgrade the skills they have in superior ways. For example a poor reader can be a good speaker. ( I worked in several factories while going to college and found a vast void between the factory floors and the college classrooms. The greatest teacher turned out to be a factory foreman who taught me skills of life and not just work. It seems educators know more about producing more good educators without experiencing the practical life most people live.)
In our economic times, a working poor class has been created by elite forces who let things happen for their own selfish reasons. Manual labor is looked upon as something less than a person making money on money without working. A new solidarity of labor and work has to stop these tendencies. Workers must find more ways to challenge the elite groupings who prescribe the setting of the work place. Aristotle said making money on money is unnatural and yet in our times this is held at higher level of achievement than work itself.
We know life brings many hardships to conquer and there is good reason for temporary despair. However, hope can uplift us and actually activate what is good and then let that good grow no matter what. We can become what we hope for even though the original good we sought was something different. And for those who hold prayer as a power, hope can thrive with added grace. Change is the dramatic characteristic of living and in it we can find hope too.
NEXT we talk about courage and fear and later we go into what it takes to speak are minds in a way others will listen.
