Hope floats...if you let it.

It's easy to get disillusioned about hope. Considering this political season, it's easy to get kinda hungover on it too. But we still need it. Because our outcome to any quest is already predetermined by the beliefs we carry into it.

"You'll never make it."
"Do you know how many people have tried and failed?"
"Don't get your hopes up."

Many of us since childhood have been discouraged not to put too rosy a tint on our colored glasses. We're constantly reminded of all that can go wrong. Not to be a menace, but merely to protect. There is nothing more heartbreaking for a parent than the heartbreak of a child. Be it the first fall from the tricycle heartbreak or not getting accepted to our choice college heartbreak...or worse. Parents are the first ones to remind us that we can fall. And that's part of their job.

But sometimes, depending on how severe the warnings are or how much they are emphasized, we are exposed to the constant prediction of negative outcomes. We watch others do this. And then, we learn to do the same. Somehow we turn caution into coma.

I don't know about you...but everything I've ever wanted for myself, came with someone(s) telling me how unlikely it was that I'd ever get it done.

A family member who in her own way meant well, told me when I was picking the colleges I wanted to attend, not to add Penn to my list. She told me not to aim so high. To manage my expectations and shoot for the schools that I'd be assured acceptance into. Be a big fish in a small pond, she told me. It was Ivy, and I was in my junior year at one of the worst high schools in the city of Philadelphia. She, in her attempt to try and create a more "reasonable expectation" for me, ticked off all the reasons why I would not be accepted. And had I listened to her, I would have logically followed her realistic assessments and adjusted my goals to fit a more attainable outcome.

I think you know how that story ends.

And so it has always been. Except now...I am that well intentioned family member. Quietly reminding myself of what is not attainable. Constantly trying to derail myself by diverting myself away from my truest desires by telling myself I can't have them. Subconsciously reminding myself of my failures as if to buffer myself against the sting of dreaming too much.

Is it a matter of age, changing that buoyancy I once had to spring back from disappointment? Have I grown so "wise" that I now fear success as much as I do failure? Am I suddenly blind to the fact that everything I've ever done was done with a healthy crowd of non believers watching me dubiously from the sidelines?

Tomorrow, I remind myself of today. Today I remember that my ability to undermine is only surpassed by my ability to shape my reality.

Today I remember that I make things happen by believing and I have the track record to prove it.