I have heard the expression, “Hope springs eternal,” many times throughout my life. I always thought it was a reference to baseball and spring training, meaning that as spring begins, a Major League baseball team hopes that this year will be different; this year, they will win the World Series.
The expression can refer to other sports as well. This year, the University of Utah women’s gymnastics team—the Red Rocks—made it to the NCAA final four again, or as the gymnastic junkies call it, “The Four on the Floor.” Utah has the longest-running streak of making it to the Four on the Floor, five times running. And the Red Rocks are the only team that has qualified for every NCAA national championship and has won it ten times. But its last win was in 1995—thirty years ago. This year, the team thought it was their year again and led all other teams going into the final day of competition. But several of their most experienced gymnasts had uncharacteristic off days, and the Red Rocks finished a disappointing fourth.
How did the Red Rocks react to their fourth-place finish? One member, who returns to the program next year, summed it up this way: “I think we can just be hungrier. I think we can do everything we need to in the gym over this next season. We are going to come out here (next year) and show everyone who we are at Utah gymnastics.” Another team member added: “I think the freshmen now, especially, have a little bit of their toes dipped in the water and they’re gonna be a lot hungrier than they were this season, especially myself. I’m excited to see what we can bring to the table. Especially over the summer, I’m excited to see how hungry we will be.” In short, hope springs eternal for Utah gymnastics.
The expression, though, is not limited to sports. “Hope springs eternal” is from the poem, An Essay on Man, by Alexander Pope:
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”
I was never good at analyzing poetry, but scholars tell me Pope meant that we have to have the hope that living a righteous life will bring us blessings in the hereafter, even when times are hard in this life. I prefer what Desmond Tutu said: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
The highest rated film of all time on the Internet Movie Database is The Shawshank Redemption.[i] It is easy to understand why, because it inspires us to have hope when life seems almost unbearable. As you will recall, a banker (Andy, played by Tim Robbins) is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. While in prison, Andy befriends Red (played by Morgan Freeman) over a quarter of a century, always maintaining his innocence and hoping that justice will ultimately prevail. In one scene, Andy explains to his fellow inmates that hope is something inside you that even the prison guards can’t take away from you. Here is the scene from the film:
Red, though, has lost his hope and considers it a dangerous thing. It can drive a man insane. There is no use for hope in prison. It will only lead to disappointment, as all the hope in the world will not get you out if you are burdened with a life sentence.
Some people are burdened with a life sentence in the form of mental illness. Why should they hope? They reason that nothing will cure their mental illness. And that loss of hope often results in death by suicide. For example, studies show that between 25 percent and 60 percent of those with bipolar disorder will attempt suicide at least once in their lives, and between four percent and 19 percent will die by suicide.
But in The Shawshank Redemption, Andy is undeterred. He keeps his hope alive and finds a way to escape after many years behind bars. And that gives Red hope until he is finally paroled. Here is a scene near the end of the movie:
Yes, hope is a good thing—maybe the best thing—we can have in this life.
Last weekend, I participated in the tenth annual 100-mile “Walk to Wendover.” It is a fundraiser to raise awareness of suicide prevention. The walk starts in Tooele, Utah, and ends in Wendover, Nevada, a hundred miles away. As I listened to some of the walkers’ stories about a loved one who died by suicide or their own demons, I contemplated my own family’s struggles with it. I reminded myself that most people who take their own lives do so because they have lost hope. They don’t see how their lives can get better, so they do what is necessary to end the pain they are experiencing.
Barack Obama once said, “Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.” But how do we convince someone who has lost hope and contemplates death by suicide to muster that courage and fight for something better in their lives? One way might be to remind them of these sayings my daughter wore on her t-shirt during the walk:
- It’s OK to not be OK.
- You are enough.
- The world is a better place with you in it.
- Don’t be so hard on yourself.
- Keep going; tomorrow needs you!
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, please know there is hope. Life can be hard, but we can do hard things. And with hope, miracles happen. Or, as the tagline from The Shawshank Redemption reminds us, “Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”
- Production Company: Castle Rock Entertainment
- Director: Frank Darabont
- Writers: Stephen King and Frank Darabont
- Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and Bob Gunton
- Release date: October 14, 1994
Life Lessons Through Film 