Hope is a subject that's been running through my head a lot recently. I've found that when something bad happens to me I always turn to hope to brighten my day. It's the one thing that can never be taken away. I can suffer extreme loss or painful situations. I can fail extremely or be told that I'll never succeed. But at the end of the day my hope will be here for me.

I need to qualify here that when I refer to hope it isn't necessarily in the religious sense. I do not belong to any major religion so my hope isn't under the context of reaching a heaven or enlightenment or anything like that. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I have great interest in religion because of it's power to give people hope for a never ending future, for eternal life. I understand that some people need that bigger picture, that final destination, to give them hope that at some point everything will be better. I just don't necessarily believe in that.

I rather find it to be more powerful to find hope in the real world. I think it's important that people, even those who lean towards God for strength, find the strength that's within themselves. When something bad happens to you: maybe it's a breakup, maybe you didn't get the part you wanted in the show, maybe your friend betrayed you... no matter what it is, I've found that the most powerful thing is to stop, think about what went wrong, and have hope that the next time you're put into that situation it'll be better. This just wasn't your time, but your time will come. You will find the love of your life. You will get the part that's right for you. You will find friends who will treat you better. All you need to do is know things will change, things will get better. All you need is to have hope.