Annie Lamott: Hope Begins In The Dark

The very least I can do my life is to hope.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

My choices reflect my hope. The stubborn belief that even in the darkest of times, I’m still getting closer to the light has done more for my life in the last twenty years. Hope doesn’t work in isolation. It needs you to step forward, to take action, for it to truly live. Novelist and author of Bird by Bird, Annie Lamott, said, “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.”

We rarely get the luxury of seeing the entire path before we start walking. But hope says, “Walk anyway.” In the dark, the path isn’t clear. The only thing we can control is our steps. And that’s where hope plays its role. It’s the decision to act, even when you’re unsure if it will work. Hope is choosing to try, even when we don’t know how things will turn out. That’s where it starts — in the dark. When you don’t have all the answers, but keep going anyway. Hope is making an effort when you’re not sure it will pay off.

And it’s hard.

But it’s necessary.

I know what it feels like to hope. I’m sure you do, too. You know that feeling when you’re on the edge of giving up. Maybe it’s a job draining you, a relationship that feels stuck, or a dark season of life. You’ve…