Edna gives in to despair; she loses hope in herself and those around her. Write about a time when you have lost hope, or when you have given in to despair. What happened? What did it feel like? How did you get past that time?
There have been multiple times I have given up hope and fallen into despair. One of the most common themes of me losing hope is in sports. When one of my favorite sports team such as the Celtics or Yankees lose and are eliminated from the playoffs I give up hope and think that nothing is going to go well for a certain amount of time. For example when the Boston Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit to win the series against the Yankees I gave up all hope. One of the reasons for this is because I follow sports very closely and feel connected to the team because I believe I am a true fan. After the Yankees lost I took a lot of grief in school being one of the few Yankees fans in the school. I was very sad that my favorite team had just suffered the worst loss in playoff history. In this situation I did fall into despair but it was not very serious because it still was only sports and did not impact my life in a very major way. Something that caused me much greater despair was when my great grandmother died. I was not incredibly close with her but whenever I was with my extended family she was always there and I knew it would be a change to not have her there. To start I did not give into despair but after a couple days it hit me that she would not be there anymore. I lost some hope because I was sad due to the loss. I never really understood how much she truly meant to my mom and grandmother but everything came into perspective and it brought me down a little. It did not take me that long to cope with the loss because like I said I was not incredibly close with her but it did touch me to see my whole family so sad and down to earth. I have lost hope in multiple situations but I believe that it is never truly gone. Even if you fall into despair there is still always hope that can help no matter what the situation is.
One time I lost hope and given up was when I was trying to make Mexican Bread for a Spanish project. Overall, I attempted to make this bread about five or six times. I spent hours and hours wasting my time and getting frustrated. I wasted numerous amounts of ingredients and something was always wrong each time. The dough would not rise or after I baked it, it would come out all mushy. I felt so frustrated and pissed off as I continued to try again and again. It was almost as if I was progressively indulging myself in anger. Each attempt at making the bread got increasingly worse as I would quickly and irritably throw ingredients into the bowl and furiously mix. At one point, I felt like I had to go crazy and throw items all over the kitchen. As I got angrier, my mind strayed from cooking to, in general, Spanish class. I kept contemplating about how Spanish was such a useless class and blaming all my troubles on Spanish class. Eventually I gave up and decided to try again the next day. This was the first step in overcoming my despair. Simply leaving the kitchen and getting my mind off Spanish. After getting a good night’s sleep, and attempted once more to cook. This time with the help of my mom, who is obviously a better cooker. This was the next step in leaping over my difficulties. Obtaining help from others helped me get passed the fact that I spent so much time the other day glooming over my efforts. With the help of my mom, not only did I successfully make bread but also forgot about all the negative feelings obtained from the despair of baking bread on my own. At this point, I feel like whenever I can not accomplish a task on my own, the answer is not to give up but to get help from the millions of people around me.
When school is mentioned, I immediately think of stress. For me, the two go hand in hand. My parents always tell me that they will never be mad about a grade that I receive as long as I try my best. But, since I also know that getting good marks will make them proud, I sometimes get too caught up in the scores that my teachers give me. In an effort to please my parents, I lose sight of what is important and forget about the value of understanding the material that I am learning. During these times, when the letter grade at the top of my assignment is of the utmost importance, I find that I am much more susceptible to despair. In virtually every class, I go through phases where my mark seems like the most important thing in the world. However, at the beginning of this school year, I was especially focused on the grades I got in biology. All term I feared that I would get below an A in science. I studied with this in mind and always reminded myself that I had to do well on the next test. This did not make for a good learning experience, because I was so caught up in the grade that I had to get on my next test that I became unable to retain any of the information that I was studying. Since the grade was all I cared about, biology class became less fun, and I entered a period of despair. I was especially unhappy when I did not get the grade I had hoped for. In the end, everything worked out and I did in fact pull off and A for the term. However, this whole experience was a huge wake up call. In order to get out of my period of despair, I knew that I had to find a way to make biology class fun. So, during semester two, I took a different approach to studying. Instead of thinking about the grade I had to receive on my next text, I concentrated on the material I was learning. I quickly found that the facts I was being taught were extremely fascinating. And, shortly after, biology class became more fun than a burden. Now, when I get into a slump at school, I lighten my spirits by remembering this situation in biology. Some say that high school is a time to learn from your mistakes and prepare for the future. During the first semester of my sophomore year, I finally understood exactly what these people meant.
The definition of despair is to lose all hope or confidence. There have been many times in my life in which I have been in despair. The feeling of being in despair and losing all your hope in a certain situation is a very bad feeling to have. The human nature is to succeed and be better than others. When you just cannot do something you really want to you feel terrible. One moment of despair that I remember was last year. This was when the Celtics were against the Lakers in the 2010 NBA Finals. The game was the seventh game of the series and the winner would become champions of the world. During the game the Celtics were dominating the Lakers and it looked like the game was over. As the time was passing by, the Lakers started scoring and scoring until the Celtics finally lost the game. In the closing minutes of the game I really lost all of my hope in my favorite basketball team. I was in despair for a week or so and I lost all hope in basketball at that point. The feeling of losing was awful and I gave in to despair. I got over this time of lost hope and I finally started feeling better. This was not the only time when I gave into despair. Another time when I lost all hope was more important. In the summer when my family friends were visiting us from Turkey, the flight was flying in the middle of a thunderstorm. I am always terrified of flying during a thunderstorm. The scheduled time of arrival passed and I thought to myself that something bad happened. At this moment I was feeling sad and I gave into despair. I hate it when I give into despair. I lost all hope and I thought the plane had gotten hit by lighting and crashed. Waiting at the airport for hours was exhausting and frightening. When I finally saw that the plane had arrived safely, I felt so much better and I gained all my hope at last.
When discussing despair and losing hope, one specific situation comes to my mind. I have lost hope in myself on numerous occasions because of this circumstance, but all I could do is get over it and hope for a second chance. The thing I am talking about is theater, and being cut from shows. Sometimes in life the thing that brings you the most joy and happiness, can also bring you the most sadness and despair. Theater is my passion, the feeling I get when I am onstage is indescribable, it is like I am flying and no one can ever bring me down. But when I get cut from shows, it hits me extremely hard. While I have auditioned for many shows, the show that hurt the most to be cut from was in fifth grade. I was auditioning for the show The Wiz. It was being put on by Open Door Theater, which is a local theater company that was open to everybody, including kids with special needs and adults. I thought since that was the case I would get in no problem. After my audition I had felt so confident in myself. I was proud of the dancing I did, and the acting was good too, but I thought I had especially rocked the singing. I thought with this confidence I surely made it. The next weekend the cast list went up. When I did not see my name on the list I was devastated. I could not control myself. I felt horrible, because I had never thought something I loved could make me feel that way. I had so much resentment for everyone that had made it, and I promised myself I would never see the show, and I would never audition for any show ever again. Clearly this was an irrational and impulsive decision on my part, but when you are so young and have the thing you like most “taken away” from you cannot help but act impulsively. But in a way I am glad I experienced that, because I learned from that experience, and although I still have lots of “audition” anxiety I still put myself out there and try my best, and if I do not make it I know now it is because I am not perfect for the role. But I know there are roles out there for me, and I will never find them unless I try and believe in myself.
There never really was I time when I lost hope. I always seem to pick myself up and continue living. There was this one time when I had procrastinated an English assignment. I had to create a poster that summarizes the choice book that I chose. I decided to read Eragon by Christopher Paolini. Since I could not think of a good example of symbolism in the story or relate it back to English class, I put it off until the day before it was due. The teacher presented the students with a boring rubric and I spent most of that day staring at it, imagining some coincidence that would push back the due date. Of course, that would never come. Then, I tried to find excuses to avoid explaining some coincidental fact between Eragon and English. The pictures were placed and replaced on the piece of poster border and the picture of Eragon and his dragon Saphira changed every two minutes as I colored in the scales. I would then get bored and read some magazines until I realized how late it was. I felt desperate, thinking that I would never get the assignment done in time. For a few seconds, I felt panic as I realized that I may not finish my project in time. I continued procrastinating until I could not stand the panic and started working on the symbolism and connections. When I finally finished the paragraphs on symbolism, I connected the computer to the printer. After I turned on the printer, I recognized the red flashing light on the printer that notified me to refill the ink. I was ready to give in panic that I felt and sat down on my bed to procrastinate some more. Finally I decided to gather all the enthusiasm I had left and hoped that I would have good luck tomorrow and get the project done. I turned on the computer again to spend more grueling time on the computer to finish connecting the book to English class. I stored the essays on an usb stick and dreamt dreams with fluffy thunder clouds and angry English teachers. The next day, I felt better when I skipped lunch to run to the library and print out the last few pieces of my project. I finally turned in the poster with a timid smile and cheered when could finally forget about the project.
I have given into despair on numerous occasions in my life. One time that stands out to me is when I went to a Celtics game about six years ago on my birthday against the Spurs. I was very excited for this game because I loved the Celtics and there was nothing better than watching the game with friends to me. The game ended up being a blowout with the Celtics losing by around thirty points. This was crushing for me because I had been a Celtics fan for years, and it was very tough to support them when they were losing by this much game after game. I was almost about to give into despair and quit being a fan, but I stuck with the team and hoped for the best. Then in 2008, the Celtics traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen who combined with Paul Pierce and the rest of the veteran Celtics team. This duo worked together to bring an NBA Championship back to Boston for the first time in over twenty years. This championship finally ended the suffering that Celtics fans endured for many years, and I am glad that I did not give into despair when they were struggling. Another time that I gave into despair was when I did not make the basketball team in 8th grade. I had been playing basketball for six years, and I thought that I was a lock for making the team. I did not have a very good tryout, and the coach did not put me on the team. When I look back at it now, I realize that it really was not a big deal, but back then, it was a big deal to me. I was extremely upset when I found out that I did not make the team, and I was considering quitting basketball for good. However, I did not give into despair, and I kept working hard towards my next goal which was making the freshman basketball team. I ended up making the team which was very satisfying knowing that my hard work paid off, and I did not give into despair.
Not many times in my life have I lost hope in anything. The only time that I can recall is when I broke my elbow at camp. After they put the elbow back into place I asked the doctor if my arm would be ok and his response made my heart drop. He said that I might have permanent nerve damage to my lower arm for the rest of my life. At that moment I lost hope in my arm. I just did not know what to think at that moment. Do I feel sad, angry, disappointed, or nothing at all. I was numb when he gave me the grim news. He explained that the nerve cord that controls your lower arm ran right along the bone that I broke and there was no way to tell if damage had been done. I was thinking that all of the things that I took for granted might be taken away from me. All of the sports I played would be out of my life and many other enjoyable activities would be out of the question. On the car ride home I was able to move my fingers slightly so I knew that I at least had some mobility of my fingers. The doctor was not able to see me for a couple of days and those were some of the most nerve racking days of my life. Once I met with my doctor he said that no permanent damage had been done and my nerves were fine. He also said that I was extremely lucky that the bone did not cut through the nerve cord when I broke away from the rest of the elbow. Through months and months of physical therapy I recovered almost all of the motion in my elbow and arm. Hard and painful work was required to go back to normal again
I’ve had a pretty good life and therefore have never really had a true moment of despair where I have completely given up like Edna. The closest experiences would be when I am frustrated or discouraged by something such as right now. Just seconds ago I had to choose a topic to write about for my blog but I really couldn’t decide what to write about so I just kept thinking about how frustrating it was. This is when it hit me because my moment of despair was right then because I had to do my English homework and could not think of what to right about. I lost hope because I assumed my blog would be stupid and not reach the word limit. This was frustrating and discouraging seeing as we are getting graded on this. I was also annoyed at myself for leaving it for the last minute again and not giving myself enough time to do the homework. But instead of giving up I just used the ideas that I already had about how hard it was to write about a time of despair. Another thing that helped was thinking about how lucky I was to really not have a time of despair in my life and that even things that had seemed traumatic in the past really did not matter in a few years. From this enlightening experience I’ve learned that when things seem like a big deal they are probably not and will be laughable in time. Perseverance and hard work are work are always the best ways to get out of a time when a person looses hope. In Edna’s case women were not really allowed to do that much and could not help themselves fix the problems in their lives. So it is easy to see why Edna lost hope in the end.
Despair is the feeling someone gets when all their hope is lost. There aren't many situations that made me lose all of my hope though. Even when my team was losing in a game or when I injure myself, I never truly lost all of my hope; there was always a little hope lingering inside me. However, there is one time when I did feel an extreme amount of despair. I had just lived in China for two years, not speaking a word of English or thinking about English at all, and I was told that I was moving back to the US. I came back thinking nothing would change and I would fit in perfectly well. Well, I would be proven very wrong my first few weeks back. I tried to talk to some of my friends and I was wondering why they were giving me such weird looks. Then I just realized I was just blabbering nonsense. I had forgotten how to speak English. I learned it before I went to China, but the 2 years I spent in China made me forget. I thought I would never be able to fit in or make any new friends. I lost all hope in my ability to live a normal life. I thought I would never be able to communicate with anyone, be it my friends, my teachers, or anyone else. I would just sit around with no one to talk to all alone. I had given up for a time. However, after a few days of feeling sorry for myself, I pulled out of my despair. I realized that sitting around wouldn't accomplish anything at all and decided to take action. I began learning to speak English again and I begin learning how to communicate again. After 2 months of learning to speak again, I went to go see my friend and began talking with him again. I think we were both blown away to see that I could talk without just speaking jibberish. I learned that it is never a good idea to give into despair, even though it may seem like it's the easy choice. unfortunately for Edna, she took that easy choice and gave in.
One time I lost hope and gave up was when my math teacher would not let me use a calculator on my math tests. I felt completely hopeless and frustrated. I cannot do the math without a calculator, my brain just does not work that way. My math grades began falling off dramatically. I began getting nothing but F’s because I could not do any of the math without a calculator. My teacher would not give me partial credit on any of the problems that I got wrong. I either had to do the calculations right, or fail. I became very distraught. I began to think that I was awful at math, and would never be able to do it right. I was able to do the complicated calculations and understand how to do the problems, but without a calculator I invariably got the problems wrong. I thought that I would never do well in math, and because of this I would not be able to get into some of the other classes I wanted to take when I switched schools. I began to give up, and my math grades got worse. I told anyone who would listen that I could not do math. Some people tried to reassure me that I was not actually bad at math, but that I was just bad at arithmetic, but because the two were so closely connected I vehemently denied that I could do any of it. I began to give up on everything. I tried harder in science and history, hoping to make up my deficit there, but my math teacher was also my English teacher so I began to give up on English too. I was aware at that point that when I switched schools my math level and my science level would be closely connected and that gave me even less hope that I would do well at anything. If I was so bad at math, then I wouldn’t be able to do well in science either and I had already proven to myself that I had to be in Honors science. I felt like everything was snowballing. Because I was not allowed to use a calculator I was bad at math, I gave up in English and I began stressing about science. This one small change destroyed my hope for everything in high school. Eventually I was able to prove to my math teacher that I really did need a calculator and he allowed me to use one again. After that I was able to get back on track and get mostly A’s in math, and I felt better about all my other classes too, but I continued to deny being any good at math, and I knew that without the calculator everything would fall apart.
One time I had lost hope was actually quite recently. It was the week of tennis tryouts and the weather was not fantastic. On top of that I had not played any tennis outside because they had put the nets up one or two days before. Coming into the tryouts I was pretty confident that if I didn’t screw up I would have a spot on the varsity team. Of course the first day, the weather was cold, muscles were tight and I ended up choking. I lost my first two challenge matches that day and went home very disappointed with myself and very angry. I even considered quitting tennis and just tossing my 7 years of tennis out the window. I felt really mad because the kids I lost to I definitely could have beaten, but I had been too nervous and lost both of them. I felt like I was just going to do terrible during all of tryouts and only make the JV team which I was on freshman year. Thankfully I did not give into despair and I did not give up. I talked to my friends and they convinced me not to quit and just to push through try outs. I agreed with them, I had worked too hard this year to just give up everything over one day. I had to bring everything I had on the next day. That’s exactly what I did, I told myself to forget about whatever had happen the last day and just go out there and try my best. The remaining days of tryouts I was able to win all my games, and make up for my bad start. I ended up making the team, but the important thing is that I had lost hope, but did not give into despair and fought back to make the team.
The only time that I have ever lost hope in my life was when the doctors could not diagnose my grandmothers illness five years ago. She lived in Michigan and her town did not have the best doctors so they did not know what she had. My mom went up to get her to bring her here so she could get the help she needed for her health. When she arrived at the house she looked totally different than the last time she was here. She was awfully skinny, she was skin and bones, and I knew that there was something wrong with her health. We all thought she had lung cancer because she was a heavy smoker all her life but the doctors could not find anything. My grandmother did not want to do all the treatments the doctors wanted her too. With no gain in finding a cure for my grandmother and seeing her get more sick everyday I lost hope that they would find a cure to save her life. That time for my family was unpleasant we all were worried for my grandmother, and that year I became isolated from the world and my social life. I felt heartbroken that I had lost hope in my grandmother getting better. I did not want to lose hope but seeing her getting sicker it was difficult not to. I did not want to be around my friends or anyone because I was depressed that one of my family members was dying and I could not do anything to help her except just be with her. It was May 17 2006 when she died. The whole family was devastated by her death, but the part that helped us get over this hard time in our life was that she did not have to suffer anymore. She left us to be in a better place where she was not in pain anymore, she had went to heaven, and she will always be looking out for my family and I. It helped me to realize that she was in a better place to get over that time because I only wanted her to get better and she got better when she passed.
I try to avoid falling into despair. Hope is the only thing an individual can hold onto when in distress. It keeps them going and helps them believe a change will occur for the better. Nevertheless about 5 or 6 years ago, I often fell into despair. My parents would always disagree and yell at each other over the smallest things. I would sit in my room doing homework, listening to the arguing and wishing that it would soon come to an end. However, overtime it only got worse. For some time, I thought my parents might want a divorce. The more I thought about it, the more sorrow I felt. I could not imagine my life without having both my parents by my side at all times. Instead of believing that things would change, I was pessimistic and only thought of the worst possible outcomes. My grades dropped and my friends began to notice something was wrong. But they were there to help. They were comforting and just being around them helped me forget about my troubles. Nevertheless, my problems would always seem to catch back up to me when I got home. A little girl saved my family though. Around this time, my little sister was about one year old. She would begin to cry whenever she heard my parents fight, halting the dispute in its place. In order to keep my sister happy, my parents realized they could not split up and had to do everything they could to hold them self back from starting an argument. From then on, the arguing decreased dramatically. They got along for our sake and thanks to my sister, our family was saved. Our parents’ love for us kids is what in the end prevailed.
The only times I have really given into despair is when school begins to overwhelm me. Very often, I have weeks of school where I have so many tests and quizzes and projects, it seems like I will never be able to get any of it done. Instead of being organized and trying to look for a positive side to my problems, I become so stressed out and upset, it seems like the world is going to end. Giving into despair feels horrible. It felt like no one cared about me and my problems were unimportant. It made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for the classes I was taken, and I’d gotten myself into a mess. Then, with those feelings, I started to isolate myself from my friends, since I didn’t want to bring them down also. It amazed me how despair in one aspect of my life, school, could affect almost every aspect of my life. It affected my social life, by isolating myself. It affected my family life, since I became unresponsive and rather rude to my family. It affected my sleep, since I was staying up late working, and then I found myself unable to fall asleep because of the stress I was worrying about. It affected my health, because of the sleep deprivation and I was so busy working and stressing, I wasn’t eating right or exercising. Really, the whole ordeal was scary. It’s very scary to not feel in control of your life or your happiness. Everything seemed to be going wrong and I couldn’t change it, because I didn’t know how. Pulling myself out of this feeling was one of the hardest things I had to do. The first time it happened was right before winter break, so during the break I didn’t have to worry about school and or grades, which made my life much easier. I was so happy to just be able to relax and spend time with my friends. In other times, when there wasn’t a break, finally the homework load would let up, and I began to relax. I think really though, it was my mental strength that saved me. I convinced myself to look at the bright side of things and talk to my friends about it, who told me what I was feeling was normal, and I just needed to work through it and think about things that made me happy. They were right. Now, when school overwhelms me, I just think about how summer is coming and school won’t matter anymore. Well, for a few months.
One time I gave in to despair was at a music camp I went to. On the second day after my lesson with my new teacher, he gave me a piece to work on and he told me to surprise him and play it the best I could at the next lesson. Around this time, I was also part of a small jazz group of 5 people as another class. Since the group was small, we all had to do improvised solos in each song we played. I had never done one before and was very nervous, but the other kids in the group also hadn’t improv soloed before either. Our instructor taught us how, but while the other members were able to pick up on it quickly I couldn’t because of my nerves. I became depressed over these two things because I didn’t have enough confidence. When I practiced the piece my teacher gave me, it always sounded boring and the same and I felt that I wouldn’t be able to live up to what my teacher said. I also couldn’t spit out a solo no matter how much I tried or thought about it, and I felt like crying whenever we went over it in the jazz group. I fell into despair because of my lack of confidence and I felt that I would never improve and that I was a bad musician. After sitting around during my practice hour and feeling sorry for myself for a while, I realized that I would never get better if I didn’t do anything. If I just sat around then I wouldn’t get better. I was able to get over it and do my best for the rest of the time at camp by just throwing out my worries for a few minutes and just thinking about the music, instead of not having enough confidence or about what other people would think. I still don’t have a lot of confidence, but I know that hard work pays off and I always try my best.
Ever since fourth grade, I have always been placed in a different class or wing than all my other friends. Year after year, I hoped that the following year will be different. That hope vanished every time I read the class list posted on the front door of the school because once again, all my friends magically wound up in the same class…again. Then in seventh grade, I gave up wishing to be in the same wing as all my friends and I decided to do something about it. I made new friends. The reason I couldn’t do this in the previous years is because elementary school has a limited number of people, and it’s the same people you see year after year. It’s not like junior high or high school where you’re surprised with meeting people in your grade that have been there just as long as you have. For the first few months, I was angry and sad. Mostly angry though. I thought it was so unfair that I could never be in the same classes as them. They would be talking about the affairs of their wings and I would just have to sit there quietly due to my inability to add to the conversation. After I had had enough, I pushed past the anger and I opened up my eyes to all the other people that I could be friends with. One normal day in gym, I walked up to a girl in gym (who had been there for the past few months) and I said hi. And ever since that day, we have been best friends, even until today. So the big lesson I learned is that I shouldn’t just sit there hoping for something that I knew wouldn’t happen. If I stopped wishing and started opening my eyes to all the opportunities, then I wouldn’t need to be hopeful. I had felt happy to found a friend for the rest of the year, and when it was almost time to return to school, I went up to the paper posted on the wall to see if she was in my wing too…and she wasn’t. She ended up in the same wing as all my other friends. Once again, I was mad, but I remembered the scene from last year and I continued to make more friends while keeping the ones I wasn’t in touch with as much.
My grades in Biology Honors last year made me lose a lot of hope. On my first test in the class, I think I got a C, but it was only the beginning of the year and I thought I could bring up my grade. As the year went on, I noticed my test grades, counting for 70% of my term grade, were constantly C’s and D’s. I did not realize how hard the class was going to be for me, after I convinced my parents to let me override from my earth science H recommendation. Somebody told me, this year, that after first term you were allowed to drop to biology AE, a sophomore class, and I really regret not knowing that before. There was one test on which I got a B, and it made me very happy and motivated me to try to do better in the class. From that time, I got a tutor and even had my dad help me with every single section. After trying various study technique, my grades still continued stay in the same range. I remember getting an F on one test, and that made me lose all hope that I could do any better. Before every test or practical, I was really frustrated and stressed because it was really hard for me to memorize all that detailed information. What helped me get past that time was just thinking about how I would never have to take biology again for at least another few years. I somehow managed to get through the year and passed the class, and I was relieved of the torture of biology first period every day.
During my free time, I usually stop by the hospital I volunteer at even if I’m not scheduled to be there. Over last summer, I was told to go talk a little boy who was diagnosed with leukemia a couple of months ago. I was supposed to go talk to him and give him company, and just take his mind off of his disease. For many weeks, we sat there talking about his favorite cars while watching numerous Disney movies. He seemed to be an average child living a normal life, but inside he was very weak and fighting extremely hard. However, he was always smiling and taking about the wonderful memories he had of his mom when he was sill healthy. I thought that since this boy had so much hope, he was sure to make it through. Since he was so positive, he made me positive about everything as well. About halfway through the summer, he had to go into chemotherapy for his second time. Being so little, he had no idea what was happening. I constantly told him that he would get better and he could go home to his parents and sister soon. To be honest, I had no idea what was going to happen, but I couldn’t tell him the truth. After a few weeks, the doctors told me that the leukemia cells were quickly taking over his body and he only had a few weeks left in his life. I couldn’t believe that such an innocent and sweet life was being taken away from such a young child, and it was about then I lost all hope. I thought the doctor’s decision was final, and everything the doctor said would be true. The doctors decided it was best if the little boy didn’t know, but I couldn’t help but feel bad for the boy. I began treating him differently, and I tried to help him make the best out of every moment he had. He noticed this and commented one day, but I still couldn’t tell him what was wrong. I could see him becoming weaker, because the Lego castles we used to build would never be finished because he lost all his energy. I knew he would be gone in a few weeks, and didn’t want to push anything. However, he sustained the hope he had in himself and he constantly told himself that he would get better and go home to his parents. Just three days ago, I was in the hospital volunteering. I was about to go to the little boy’s room to see how he was doing. This little boy then comes up to me and just gives me a hug, and says thanks. Today, he’s at home doing whatever he wants because his hope brought him through all the challenges.
One, who is strong, shouldn’t give in to the feelings of despair. I don’t fancy myself as one who often loses hope in something that they want to accomplish. When you lose hope in something you care about, what does that say about yourself? Will other hard decisions in your life turn into acts of misdirection and indecision? As kids, the choices we make will ultimately not matter in our lives. Yet, we place too much thought into how they might effect us, when in reality, the next day might be different. We crave short term gratification, yet teenagers deprive themselves of self advocation because of their inability to continue pushing on in the face of slight adversity.
Although this ideal of living life to adapt to the future seems commonplace and thought out to me currently, this thought process didn’t dawn on me until much later in my life. Up until this point, I was getting stressed out about ultimately idiotic process in my life, most commonly taking place in school. Things like public speaking and social events had me worrying about the potential problems and embarrassments that could arise from the situation.
I took a step back one day to look at why I had these thoughts, and I realized, it’s only because you are merely told by your peers and teachers that public speaking is a difficult adventure, or that social events are a minefield of embarrassments and awkwardness. I was loosing hope of myself being like the other kids, who could seemly speak to people with confidence and class.
The problem stems from the fact that social classes still arise today. Instead of social classes being occupational, as adults have it, kids have to deal with the social class of age. You are told to respect the upper classmen. Elementary school, you had to respect the kingly 5th graders. Middle School, the 8th graders are the royals. High school tends to blur the lines between social classes. Hope is gained back in high school. Despair no longer runs your life. Confidence is gained, friends are made, overcoming adversity is achieved.
Although I’d like to be able to say I never lose hope, it’s untrue. One time in my life that I lost all hope was way back in third grade, when I went to private school. The school was tiny, only around two hundred kids in preschool through eighth grade. The classes were multi-age, and once you get put in a class, you stick with that class, the exact same kids, for three years. There was only one other girl in my grade in my class, and she was my best friend. We were what one would call inseparable, conjoined at the hip. We did everything together, had the same taste in clothes, music, and school. But one tragic day in March of third grade my best friend informed me that she was moving schools. I completely lost all hope of having friends. I went three years with basically only one best friend. I had some friends, more like acquaintances, in my class, but they weren’t her. I gave up all hope of my happiness, all hope of wanting to go to school anymore. What was I supposed to do for the rest of the year? The feeling was terrible. No one understood me. My parents would tell me, “Monique, you can make a new friend,” or, “what’s the big deal? You can still see her on weekends.” They just didn’t get it, no one did. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, and I just felt alone. I’m not going to lie and say it was easy making a new friend and fitting in with the younger girls, because it wasn’t. I stuck it out the rest of the year making friends with a couple of girls in my class who were a year younger. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected when I had first heard the news of my friend changing schools, but it certainly wasn’t easy not being able to have someone there for me all the time. I sat with girls in my grade from other classes, and made some really good friends by the end of the year. Although it was hard for me, I looked past my sorrow and focused on who I could enjoy the year with, rather than sulking around alone, hating my life and school. It turned out to be a fine year, and although I lost hope for awhile, I regained it and used it to my advantage, making close friends who I still talk to today.
In the year 2004, something very special happened, that was very very close to not happening. In October the Boston Red Sox took on the New York Yankees in the American League Championship. Led by a cast of characters including Kevin “Cowboy Up” Millar, Johnny “We’re All Idiots” Damon, as well as Pedro Martinez, David “Big Papi” Ortiz, and Manny Ramirez, the Red Sox had as good of a chance to win this year as anytime in the past. After a late season rally to clinch the Wild Card, and easily beating the Angels in the first round of the playoffs, the Red Sox were set to take on their bitter rivals in what was to become one of the greatest series of all time. The first game was played in New York, and the favored Yankees won, taking both of the first two games played in New York. Now as the rules say the best of seven series traveled back to Boston for three games before traveling back to New York for the last two. It was game three, I remember the most. I went to the game expecting a heating nail biter between two great historic franchises. However, I got something very unexpected, a nineteen to eight defeat, the Red Sox have never in my days looked worse, or at least in worse shape to win a series. After losing nineteen to eight to the New York Yankees, the franchise with the most World Series wins of all time, things looked grim for the Red Sox. After weaving my way through the drunken hysteric crowd, I thought to myself during the long train ride home that the series is over, and we will have to wait until next year. I did not even bother to watch game four, after game three I had fallen into despair and given up hope. Even after the game four comeback win, I felt no confidence or hope, knowing how bad they could play, there was no way for them to comeback. Even after game 5 and 6 wins, I still did not believe. It was hard to be with everyone who had so much hope, all of red sox nation believed, but I did not. It was not until Johnny Damon’s game seven grand slam that I realized they had a shot. The rolling Red Sox ended setting history as the only team to come back from 3-0 down in a MLB playoff series, and even went on to sweep the Cardinals in the World Series to end the near century long drought.
Losing all hope can be one of the worst experiences. One day, I was on a bike trip up in Maine, me and my biking group were in the middle of nowhere in northern Maine. We might have been passed by 20 cars the entire day. The mountains were immense and I had a very long day of biking in front of me. Just after breakfast, I flew down a hill. I remember I hit 40 miles per hour and I could not see the objects on the ground. I hit a nail and my tire blew out. I soon changed the bike tire. Unfortunately, the nail broke in my bike tire. The fragment of nail punctured every new bike tube (which holds the air in the bike tires). I soon destroyed every spare tire tube and used every patch in a patch kit I had brought with me. I had to bike with a flat for over 15 miles. After being so frustrated with hearing the noise of a flat tire and seeing mountain after mountain, I felt I wanted to go home. The other people in my group were having similar fates. One boy’s gear snapped and broke his gear system. Our trip leaders were assisting us in repairing our bikes and we were not making progress towards reaching our camp. One girl, became separated from the group. Her chain on her bike soon snapped. When we thought we were never going to make it to camp and our final goal, Quebec City, one man in a very old pickup truck pulled up. He offered the girl a ride to the bike shop which was miles away. Frighten, she refused. The mysterious man soon tracked down our trip leader. He later went back to his house and brought a giant trailer. By this point in the day, it was a godsend. I was so exhausted because biking on a flat tire is never easy. Our group loaded our mangled bikes into his trailer and went to his house. This man was the stereotypical recluse. His name was C.W. Tuck and in his house, he had taxidermied heads of every animal in the forest. Our group and C.W., with the appropriate supplies toiled on our bikes and miraculously, fixed all of them. We put my bike tire underwater and found the troublesome leak. The thought of being able to continue our trip was very uplifting. Our group soon left his house in the late afternoon, and made amazing time to our camp. We made it just before dark and he even brought us pizza. This experience has restored my trust in strangers and never give up hope. When trips turn into adventures and do not go according to plan, I know never give up hope. The goodness of others or just pure luck will help me though rough times. Our group reached our final goal and we soon sent C.W. Tuck a gift. When times look bleak, I know that it is very far from over.
I have been in despair a few times in my life but most of the time it is caused by my favorite sports teams. As a generation we have been lucky enough to see 3 Super Bowls, 2 World Series, and 1 NBA Championship come to the city of Boston. But I always want another one and every time that a team gets eliminated, it is depressing. The one team I vividly remember giving up hope on was the 2004 Red Sox. They were down 3-0 in the ALCS to the New York Yankees, a team we could never beat in the playoffs. This was so depressing because the Red Sox had such a good team that year and they had lost to the Yankees in the playoffs the previous year on a walk off home run after being up 5 runs. The first two games of the series were close but the third game the Red Sox got blown out 19-8. I remember my parents invited some of their friends over to our house and during the game and especially after, everyone was for the most part silent and shocked. Then even in Game 4, the Red Sox were down by 1 run with the best closer in baseball, Mariano Rivera coming in to close the series. But then Kevin Millar walked, Dave Roberts pinch ran and stole second and then Bill Mueller singled to tie the game. Then all of a sudden, there was life in Fenway Park and virtually all of Boston. Then David Ortiz hit the walk off home run in the 11th and then in the next game. In Game 6, Curt Schilling pitched with a torn tendon in his ankle and a bloody sock. He shut the Yankees down and the Red Sox won Game 6. Then in Game 7, Derek Lowe pitched well and Johnny Damon hit two home runs finishing the come back, sending the Red Sox to the World Series where they won their first World Series in 86 years. It went from one of the most depressing weeks of my life to one of the greatest so quickly. It did not lift my grief and despair but an entire city and nation of Red Sox fans as well. Before Game 4, everyone who was a Sox fan walked around so depressed and glum. Then the day after, it was like someone flipped a switch, and people were happy and energetic. They had won one game and the whole series felt different. I felt nervous in most of the games because it was still illogical to think we would win the series. After that game though, I knew we had gotten past the feeling of hopelessness and eventually would move on to the feeling of success.
I don’t really like to dwell on times of despair however there is one recurring situation in my life that always makes me very upset. Whenever I have to leave my dad after visiting him my heart just feels heavy because I know it’s going to be a long six months before I see him again. I have always been a daddy’s girl and it’s really hard to say goodbye. Because it’s always at the international terminal in Sydney airport, my dad can’t come through with Lucy and I to customs and we say our goodbye’s just outside. I know it’s hard for dad as well so I try to keep a brave face until we’re through the doors and he can’t see us anymore. Although, the officials that check the passports must think I’m weird because by the time we reach the front of the line, I’m a total mess. Consistently, the flight after saying goodbye to my dad I get sick – once it was so bad they had to find a doctor on the plane and put me on oxygen. That was probably the most helpless and desperate I have ever felt. I think that, although my mind is trying to be hopeful and look forward to all of the exciting activities in the US, my heart is in despair and my whole body exhibits that sadness and emotional stress. The worst part about it is that it’s going to keep happening. I’m pretty emotional with goodbyes at the best of times and it’s tough to have the same, hard goodbye two or three times in a year. My driving force to get through these rough times is both my sister, Lucy, and my parents in America – my mum and step-dad. They’re all so supportive and understanding and Lucy is going through the exact same emotional ride as me so even though it’s a goodbye, we’re not alone. The less I think about it, the easier it is to leave. If I can distract myself long enough to get back to my real life in the US then my sadness keeps from becoming despair, but if I think about it too much and work myself up it’s difficult to shake the heartache of missing my daddy.
Going through times of despair or hopelessness is never easy, but thankfully this has not happened to me very often. One of the few times that I felt despair happened just last year, when I took honors geometry. I have been good at math for as long as I can remember, and I had never gotten below an A minus before taking geometry. This is why it affected me so deeply when I started to do badly. On the very first test, I got a C, despite studying for a while. I did not do much better for the rest of the term, and I ended up getting a C plus for the term. This led to me losing hope that I could continue to do well in math, and I considered dropping down into a lower class. My parents were very supportive, however, and I ended up deciding to keep on trying to do well. I studied even more than I had before, and I got a B for the second term, which felt like a significant achievement. I even managed to get an A minus on the midyear. I was finally doing well but, unfortunately, my grades dropped in the third term, and I did even worse than I had done during the first term. This is when I really lost hope. It felt like I was back at square one, except now I could not even drop down because it was so late in the year. Yet again, my parents supported me, but even they could not comfort me. Because I felt hopeless, I stopped studying for tests, but strangely enough I actually started to do better than I was doing before. Somehow, I managed to get an A minus for the last term. Interestingly enough, I ended up escaping despair not because I was working harder, but instead because I got lucky.
Losing hope is one of the worst feelings I have ever felt. All is lost and the world feels like it is crashing down. I remember a time a couple years ago when I gave in to despair and it ended up saving my life. My time of total despair happened at a birthday pool party in fifth grade. I had just come back from a year in China and was looking forward to seeing some of my friends for the first time in a year. I arrived a little late to the party and everyone was already there. Walking to the pool, I could not help but feel a bit nervous. I did not know how my friends would receive me. Would they still be my good friends or would they be different? As I got in the pool, I made my way carefully across to where my friends were. They were all on noodles in the deep end playing a game until the birthday girl saw me. “Sarah!” she screamed as she swam out to meet me. The whole group came over and they each greeted me. One of my over excited friends was so happy to see me that she let out a scream and jumped onto my back. Already struggling to tread in the deep water, I now had extra weight weighing me down. I was not an experienced swimmer and yet my friend was expecting me to carry her. She was grabbing onto my shoulders tightly and I could not escape her grasp. My head was under the water and I was struggling to reach the surface. The air in my lungs was running out and my arms were getting tired from all the struggling. The more I struggled, the more my friend thought that I was just playing along. I could not do anything to get her off my back. Soon I felt lightheaded and I could no longer breathe. I felt hopeless because I could not do anything to reach the surface. With this feeling of hopelessness, I stopped struggling and prepared to meet my end. Losing hope that day in the pool was truly a scary experience because I thought that I was going to die. However, it turns out that when I lost hope and stopped struggling, my friend sensed that something was wrong. She could see that I had stopped moving so she got off me. I rushed to the surface and was able to breathe again.
A time when I gave up hope was when my soccer team lost in the final of a tournament. We were up 2-1 with two minutes left in the game. The field was wet after the rain and the other team took a shot from out side the box. The ball slid the whole way to the goal and when it got to the goalie it slipped right threw his hands and went right under him into our goal. That is when I started to lose hope in us winning the game. We went into over time and we almost scored twice. But the ball hit the goal post and did not go in. At the end we went in PK’s. I lost a little more hope at that time. The other team kicked first and scored then it was my turn. I kicked the ball just like in practice and it went in. Then the other team’s goalie stopped the next three shots we took. The only good thing was that the other team missed there shots as well. It came down to the other team and the scored on their last shot. I lost all hope when I saw the ball go in I lost all hope. There was no chance for us to try to win anymore. I got over it because I had to. I told my self that these things happen and that I would get it next time. I also got over it because the next week were came in first in our division and I completely forgot about the game the week before.
Though nothing really tragic has ever happened in my life, there have still been one or two times when life was terrible for me and I gave up hope in one way or another. For me, this happens occasionally when I have so much going on in my life that I can not successfully do everything. When I am doing something that I feel is important to my life and future, I will do everything in my power to avoid failure, as many people would. Because of this, I feel terrible when I do fail or when I am forced to give up, even if it is impossible for me to succeed in everything. Recently, there was a time when I was in this situation. There was a lot going on in school that I knew was important, such as tests and papers. There was a lot going on in my music life also, with a piano competition and other performance opportunities later on that were beginning to get on my mind also. This time was basically seemed like the climax of everything I was doing, and the result was that I had no time to relax, not even enough time to finish everything I had to do. It was an extremely difficult time, and there were points when I gave up hoping that I would be able to successfully make it. Ultimately, it became harder to do what I could get done. Luckily, everything subsided after a couple of weeks and life was almost back to normal. All of the despair was gone, and I had actually done pretty well. Looking back on it, I was as successful as I could have asked for: I won a prize in the piano competition, and I did a solid job of maintaining my grades – I think that term ended up being better than previous ones. Even though I felt terrible during the moment, like I would not be able to avoid failure, I realized at the end that I had done a great job. This, combined with the fact that life became easier afterward, is what allowed me to get through it and move on with life.
I believe that people lose hope the most when they lose someone close to them. In one year I had to unfortunate deaths in my family. The first one was my dog named Buster. Buster had been with me since I could remember. Whenever I was down he would come to me and try to play and when my parents were out, there was always someone to greet the door. The hardest part about his death was his struggle with age. For many years he couldn’t walk and barely got up just to drink. I began to lose hope after he couldn’t get onto the couch. Unfortunately, he never recovered and we later had to put him down. After his death I began to think about all the times I forced him to go away because I thought he was being annoying. I never put it into perspective that he was trying to play and didn’t know better than to lick my face until I threw his toy ball.
The most despair on my dad’s side of the family occurred when my grandparents died. I had not known them well but my dad was very close to them. He lived with them all through college and did everything he could to accommodate them as much as they did for him. When I heard the news of their death I was saddened but didn’t know what to think of it as a 4 year old. I mostly lost hope because of the sadness I saw in my dad. When I was younger, he was always upbeat but when his parents died it was like he hit a roadblock. It took about a year, a few visits to their house, and hundreds of pictures to realize how lonely it was without them. Whenever I visited them during Christmas when I was a baby, my grandma was the most eager person to hold me. I finally began to appreciate how much they cared for me.
Both events caused great despair but these events made me reflect on life. I found out that yes it may be sad to lose people in life but it has to happen at sometime. Life is to short to be in despair for long durations every time a death happens.
In my life, there have been few instances in which I can truly say I felt despair. While momentary bouts of fear or despair may always be inevitable, and may seem scary, hindsight always reveals just how laughable these “terrible” moments are. For example, when I feel despair at the sight of interims on the kitchen table, I truly feel like the world is about to end. There is a certain sense of impending doom that seems to await me when my parents get home. But after they finally see the interims, and maybe scold me for them, I realize it really wasn’t that bad after all. Whatever punishments I may receive are short lived and pretty insignificant in the long run. A month later, looking back at the incident, I just laugh at how stupid it really was. The closest thing I may actually have felt to despair is the feeling of everything I have procrastinated suddenly being due. One weekend, I had to do both the majority of an English essay and a biology presentation all in the span of two short days. Needless to say, I felt pretty doomed when I realized that I had this massive volume of work due Monday. On top of that, I also had my regular homework, which took a pretty huge amount of time by itself. After working for the entirety of Saturday and Sunday, and finally completing all of my work, I realized that it really wasn’t that bad, and all I needed to do was sit down and finish my work. This happens pretty regularly, because I’m a pretty big procrastinator, but I don’t think I ever truly feel despair at the thought of finishing my projects. Sure, maybe I feel nervous, even a bit intimidated by the fact that I have no idea how to finish whatever may be due soon, but true despair, such as that felt by Edna, isn’t really a part of my life. Also, I believe in not taking the easy way out when in despair, but persevering, unlike edna. When faced with despair, instead of pushing onwards and persevering, she killed herself.
I have given into despair many different times in my life. When I was eight years old my dad and I went to a Celtics playoff game against the nets. I was really excited to go because it was a huge game for the Celtics. The only problem was they were getting killed the entire game and at one point were even down by 25 or 30. I gave up at halftime and did not want to stay anymore because I thought the game was over. My dad would not let us leave and he kept saying that the Celtics were going to comeback. Well if I did not listen to my dad I would have missed one of the greatest sports comebacks ever. Maybe I gave up but my dad and the Celtics did not. After the third quarter the Celtics were still down by 20 and at that point I was done, I wanted to go home and go to bed. We ended up staying and in the fourth quarter the Celtics made the greatest comeback ever in NBA playoff history. It was amazing, the entire stadium was going insane, and I easily could have missed all of it if my dad let me give into despair but he did not. My dad and I still joke about that night to this day, and without him one of the greatest memories of my life would not have happened. Another time I gave into despair was when I got lost at the beach. I was three years old and my family and I were staying in Hampton for the week. One day at the beach my sister and I were playing in the water away from our family. My parents called her over and she left me all alone. When I wanted to go back in I had no clue where everyone was. Instead of just staying calm I began running down the opposite side of the beach to find them. After a while I started freaking out and crying because I thought there was no way I would ever see my family again. I stopped run and just sat down and cried. Luckily I nice family saw me and asked to help me. They found I lifeguard for me and later the lifeguard brought me to my family. In both these situations I did give into despair but I was fortunate enough to have my dad making me stay at the game, and the family and lifeguard helping me find my family.
I have always felt like a confident person in my life who can get over anything that life throws at me. However, in one particular scenario in 6th grade, I had a tough time getting over my despair. It was the summer before 6th grade, and like every year, I was playing on my Baystate baseball summer league team. In the first 4 games of the season, our team was doing great. Also, I was playing really well. I had 3 home runs so far, including a game with a 3 run home run and a 2 run home run. So obviously, I was very excited for the season, I had a feeling it was going to be one of the best of my life. However, that is when the season took a turn for the worst. During a practice scrimmage, a particularly fast pitcher was pitching. I went to bunt, and as the ball came into the bat, my thumb was in the way. The ball smashed my thumb into the bat, and an excruciating amount of pain rushed through my hand. I immediately sensed something was wrong as I could not grip with my thumb. My mom took me to the hospital and after a long wait and several x-rays, the results were that my thumb was broken. The doctor told me I could not play baseball for 4 weeks. I was crushed. My season which had started off so well, and was only going to get better, was over. I was going to miss practically all of the season, and by the time I came back, I would have missed a lot of practice and not been as good as I could be. It was really a bad ending of my season and I was going to greatly miss playing. But I knew I had to overcome this. To show my support for my team without playing, I went to every single game that I could not play in. Although I could not play it felt good to be on the diamond and be watching my team. I endured the time out and when I came back from my injury I was excited. Although I did not hit any more home runs, I finished my season fine, with a few hits. It really was a challenge for me to endure missing all those games, but the despair I felt taught me a lesson on how to truly respect things because you don't know what you got till it's gone.
I am a pessimist. I lose hope very easily but I do not necessarily go into despair. It is stronger than just simply losing hope. As you have probably determined I am a horse person, every blog has some aspect to do with horses. So yes, yet again I am writing about them. I rode one particular horse, Secret, for nearly 3 whole years, which is a long time for someone that does not actually own that horse to ride it for. I mostly rode her, in the beginning, because for one thing no one else rode her, so I was sort of stuck on her, and also because I wanted to prove people wrong. Everyone that had ever laid eyes on Secret had a feeling that she was not the nicest horse, which only grew stronger when they got closer to her. She was a bit cranky, all the time. After I rode her for a while, my reasons for riding her changed, now I rode her because I actually liked riding her. She was still crabby, and at times it was sort of an abusive relationship but she would still come to me in the field, at her own leisurely pace. In a weird way we were friends, odd as that may be. One time last year, the owner had enough of Secret's attitude toward certain people; I am 99 percent positive that the people Secret disliked were those that disliked her. She gave me one last chance to give her one reason to keep Secret, and I blew it. My lesson one winter day went out to do hill work, Secret was being a bit difficult, and she flipped on me, in the literal flipping over backwards way, crushing me. I was fine, and so was Secret. But the owner was afraid that it could happen to someone else, and kicked Secret out of the barn. I did go into a state of despair, because it was my fault, I could have prevented it. Others tell me it was not, it was Secrets, but it really was my fault that she is gone now. She is still my favorite horse, and I still do say that it was my fault, only because it was, but it was in some ways a good thing. I realized that I had gotten so far behind everyone else, because I had to train Secret, she was young, and it gave me a chance to catch up and allowed me to try new things in horseback riding. But I also just got hope, because Secret may be coming back from her training with a friend of the owner that does not want her, which is a plus for me. And Secret and I are both currently lame, injured, so I can take care of her.
By nature I am not a despairing person, but in my childhood I can find tiny aspects and analyze them. When one lives as a child, each and every trivial loss seems a cataclysm because one’s mind cannot wrap around the facts at this age and one has lived a life with too little in it. For example, once I lost a toy around the age of twelve, the details of which I do not need to get into. The point being, I was feeling down for almost a week because it cost eight dollars and was brand-new. In those days I did not have a single penny to my name and never bought anything for myself, so losing a toy felt to me as though I had betrayed my parents’ trust. I searched for it all around the house and yard but eventually blamed it on my brother, lashing out at my brother as a means to cope with my carelessness. He lashed back (verbally). I should have learned to accept my mistake by isolating myself to think it over, but at such times the attention given may have been too great. It seemed horrifying to think that one day I would be grown up and would look at my oldest toys, only to see that there was a gap in the collection. It was a small world. My mother did not tolerate altercations and sent my brother out to play soccer and me to play on my calculator. Between the three of us, the dispute had heated up and as soon as my father came home from work he was told that his boys had been quarrelling again. He gave us a good scolding. At this point I should have learned that in any conflict, almost everyone is responsible, yet no one is. That is, no one sought malicious intentions but that was what it predictably came to. Each of us was blinded by our own troubles. Had I actually thought this through, I would have been a real genius. Each family member was angry at the other, we kids and my mother and father in a little conflict triangle, and then myself against my brother. I also should have learned that to have self-control, the power of anger must be harnessed at will so that its forcefulness can be used in the right places- I should offend to punish and right one, but never simply to hurt for satisfaction. Hint: the satisfaction never comes. That June, I met someone who taught me to take a step back and analyze everything and to think on all those clichés, truths so obvious that they become neglected but really antiquated poetic devices with clear meanings. These conflicts happened occasionally, as I can safely suspect of other households with innocent children. This new knowledge truncated the light conflict on my end, and so I grew up and matured. I’m not so sure about my brother, but let’s not go there.
By nature I am not a despairing person, but in my childhood I can find tiny aspects and analyze them. When one lives as a child, each and every trivial loss seems a cataclysm because one’s mind cannot wrap around the facts at this age and one has lived a life with too little in it. For example, once I lost a toy around the age of twelve, the details of which I do not need to get into. The point being, I was feeling down for almost a week because it cost eight dollars and was brand-new. In those days I did not have a single penny to my name and never bought anything for myself, so losing a toy felt to me as though I had betrayed my parents’ trust. I searched for it all around the house and yard but eventually blamed it on my brother, lashing out at my brother as a means to cope with my carelessness. He lashed back (verbally). I should have learned to accept my mistake by isolating myself to think it over, but at such times the attention given may have been too great. It seemed horrifying to think that one day I would be grown up and would look at my oldest toys, only to see that there was a gap in the collection. It was a small world. My mother did not tolerate altercations and sent my brother out to play soccer and me to play on my calculator. Between the three of us, the dispute had heated up and as soon as my father came home from work he was told that his boys had been quarrelling again. He gave us a good scolding. At this point I should have learned that in any conflict, almost everyone is responsible, yet no one is. That is, no one sought malicious intentions but that was what it predictably came to. Each of us was blinded by our own troubles. Had I actually thought this through, I would have been a real genius. Each family member was angry at the other, we kids and my mother and father in a little conflict triangle, and then myself against my brother. I also should have learned that to have self-control, the power of anger must be harnessed at will so that its forcefulness can be used in the right places- I should offend to punish and right one, but never simply to hurt for satisfaction. Hint: the satisfaction never comes. That June, I met someone who taught me to take a step back and analyze everything and to think on all those clichés, truths so obvious that they become neglected but really antiquated poetic devices with clear meanings. These conflicts happened occasionally, as I can safely suspect of other households with innocent children. This new knowledge truncated the light conflict on my end, and so I grew up and matured. I’m not so sure about my brother, but let’s not go there.
I have lost hope lots of time in my life because I'm not very good at staying positive and happy. But, the most significant time I lost hope was when my grandpa died. I was nine years old and I knew he was sick but I didn't think he would die. My mom had gone down to New Jersey to visit him and my grandma and I was at home with my dad and my two brothers. The phone rang and it was my mom and she couldn't even talk so I gave the phone to my dad. My brothers immediately came over to me and hugged me as my dad walked away so we couldn't hear him. When he came back he told us that my grandpa had died about fifteen minutes ago while he was holding my mom's hand. I had never heard my house so silent. No one said anything for at least an hour and all I did was cry. It wasn't so much that I had lost hope in myself or the people around me but it was more that I had lost hope that my mom would ever be the same. She had always been the person I could rely on and she always seemed so strong but now she couldn't even speak. I lost hope that my life would ever be the same, and it really hasn't. There's always that empty part of my life that I can never get back and it sucks because I can't remember that much of the wonderful times I spent with my grandpa. All of the other times I lost hope were just not as significant and meaningful as this time because none of them meant anything except this.
Giving into despair is sometimes difficult to admit but at the same time is an emotion everyone feels at some point. Recently, the Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs after being defeated by the Miami Heat. It was extremely difficult to watch the old and injury stricken team battle night after night in a futile effort. It was excruciating seeing a hopeless Rajon Rondo attempting to play with practically one arm and to see the Big 3 appear too old and too slow to contend with the athletic and young Mimi Heat. Night after night the Celtics gaining a lead and seeing it slowly and painfully slip away. To make matters worse; I watched knowing this was most likely the Celtics last chance to regain their position at the top of the NBA. The worst part being the man taking away from the Celtics championship being, my most hated athlete, LeBron James. Seeing LeBron celebrate at the end of the serious made me hate that arrogant and overrated player even more. I thought it was unfair for LeBron to play with D Wade and Chris Breezy and I find any of LeBron’s championships undeserved and intolerable. Being a fan of Boston sports it was painful watching the fans of Miami celebrate our defeat the same way we had celebrated in previous years. As a fan of Boston sports I have come accustomed to and expect championships due to the tremendous success of the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots. I have been a fan my entire life including the time prior to the Big 3 and I remember the 18 game losing streak of the Celtics and realizing we may be approaching a similar point is hard. With the looming retirement of the Big 3 I remain optimistic although the upcoming seasons are most likely to be filled with despair similarly to what I feel now. Now to cure this despair I must turn to the Bruins in hope of a Stanley Cup.
I have experienced despair in a number of different ways, but one source of despair that always seems to occur more often would be the despair related to sports. Watching my favorite sports teams like The Bruins and Celtics can get pretty intense at times. When they lose big games the despair felt is almost too much, but playing and watching are truly two different things. This year my Midget II team for hockey made it to the state playoffs, and each game brought on new struggles we, as a team, would have to overcome. We ended up making it all the way to the semifinals and played against Hingham. We started off the game strong but fell behind going into the third. When the time winded down to a couple minutes left, my team and I started to get worried. At that point I was disappointed in our team and even myself, and instead of digging deep and trying to score, I gave up and gave in to despair. I was mad at myself for giving up and if I could ever go back in time I know I would’ve tried harder and I wouldn’t have stopped believing we could win. Following the game I was obviously upset, but the lesson I learned from this experience was no matter what try is always better than not trying at all.
Three years ago, in the 7th grade, my friend started getting a harsh pain in the bone of her finger. After months of toughing it out, the pain began to get unbearable. He doctor told her she had a tumor and had to be referred to a hospital to remove it. We all hoped everything was ok, and that it was a benign tumor, and nothing had gone particularly wrong. When test results from the hospital came back, we were shocked. Her doctor had said it was potentially cancerous. The first thing they were going to do was get the tumor out. Then they would test for a cancer. After the operation, we waited weeks, but those weeks seemed forever. We all thought we were going to lose our friend to cancer. Fortunately, however, the hospital said they got the tumor out before it could turn into anything harmful. So for a year, she was safe. Until she got another one in her foot. Everyone was right back to feeling as scared as before. We couldn't lose her. This one was only slightly more harmful, it caused her more pain, but still wasn't cancerous. Though it wasn't complete and utter despair, it was the closest I got to feeling hopeless. That nothing I could do would make her pain go away. Fortunately for all of us, we didnt have to do anything. She was fine.
Last Thanksgiving the family got together the whole Musto Family got together and we all shared laughs and good times. it is normally hard to get us all together in one room because everyone is always either too far away, busy or sick. Everything seemed to be going great and everyone seemed to be happy. Thanksgiving at the Musto household was a success. Until my family got the news about my uncle. My uncle Jimmy lives in Colorado, so he could not make it to the family dinner for Thanksgiving. My Dad got the news that on Thanksgiving day, his brother Jimmy, had died from a drug overdose. I had never had an uncle die and even though I was not able to be as close to him as I wanted to because he lived far away, hearing that he had died was heart breaking. The hardest part of his death was seeing my grandmother and dad so upset. I had never seen either of them cry and it was so hard to see that. My first time going to a wake was when Jimmy died, and I hope that I do not have to go to another one anytime soon. Hearing my dad's old memories as he stood up and talked about his only brother at his wake was horrific. MY dad remembered the first time that he threw a baseball with Jimmy. It was the saddest day ever. And I never thought it was going to get better and I did not think my dad or grandmother were ever going to smile again. But all it took was time. Overtime, everyone realized that death was natural, and no matter how sad it is, you have to deal with it. So that is exactly what everyone did. We dealed with it.
When a person gives in to despair it’s a very difficult time for them. I have given in to despair a few times but only one that I really remember. I gave in to despair two years ago when I thought everything in my life was bad. My best friend had recently left me and my family was not in a good place. When you give in to despair it feels really bad. I was sad all the time and I had little will to do anything. There are not many ways to get over despair. One good way is to take long walks and listen to music. During the period of time that I completely gave in to despair it took a lot of effort to think of positives in my life. My friend who I had thought was the one person I could always count on had insulted me and told me to never talk to her again. She made me feel horrible about myself and I completely lost hope and faith in everyone I knew for a while. To this day a good part of the reason I have major trust issues is because of her although not completely. In order to prevent myself from giving in to despair again I have to work on staying strong every day. Giving in to despair is one of the worst feelings a person will ever feel. The person that drove me to give in to despair really hurt me and I haven’t been quite the same since. I felt like a turtle that wanted to permanently hide in its shell. I lost all belief in myself during that time and it took a long time to even begin getting it back. My other friends helped a lot along with other people and I learned the best way to get over giving in to despair is to lean on the people who are and always will be there for you until you are strong enough to stand on your own again.
Before I was even born, my grandmother smoked cigarettes. She smoked throughout my mom's childhood up until my brother and I were born. My mom told her that she was not allowed to see us if she smoked. Luckily, my grandmother quit smoking for good. She was very healthy up until when I was in the first grade. She was admitted to the hospital due to chest pain. The doctors diagnosed her with lung cancer. She had smoked for over 30 years straight without any previous health complications. My family was shocked and we all became very worried. She had multiple surgeries to remove the cancer. Once removed, she continued her normal life for the most part. A few years later, when I was in 5th grade, she became severely ill. Her condition worsened with time and became admitted to the hospital again. The cancer was back, but this time had spread throughout her body. She underwent many long treatment of chemotherapy and radiation. Her health was not improving. We started losing hope that she might not make it. For a year, she was in critical condition. At the beginning of 6th grade, she passed away. Our hope had deteriorated to nothing. My family was heartbroken. Friends and family kept up going. Perhaps our lack of hope caused her to die? We were down to nothing. The doctors said chemo and radiation was no hope anymore. She was not going to survive. We lost it right there at that moment. We tried and tried again to keep the hope alive, but it died out. Her spirit still lives on as she continues to bring us hope everyday.
There have been multiple times I have given up hope and fallen into despair. One of the most common themes of me losing hope is in sports. When one of my favorite sports team such as the Celtics or Yankees lose and are eliminated from the playoffs I give up hope and think that nothing is going to go well for a certain amount of time. For example when the Boston Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit to win the series against the Yankees I gave up all hope. One of the reasons for this is because I follow sports very closely and feel connected to the team because I believe I am a true fan. After the Yankees lost I took a lot of grief in school being one of the few Yankees fans in the school. I was very sad that my favorite team had just suffered the worst loss in playoff history. In this situation I did fall into despair but it was not very serious because it still was only sports and did not impact my life in a very major way. Something that caused me much greater despair was when my great grandmother died. I was not incredibly close with her but whenever I was with my extended family she was always there and I knew it would be a change to not have her there. To start I did not give into despair but after a couple days it hit me that she would not be there anymore. I lost some hope because I was sad due to the loss. I never really understood how much she truly meant to my mom and grandmother but everything came into perspective and it brought me down a little. It did not take me that long to cope with the loss because like I said I was not incredibly close with her but it did touch me to see my whole family so sad and down to earth. I have lost hope in multiple situations but I believe that it is never truly gone. Even if you fall into despair there is still always hope that can help no matter what the situation is.
ReplyDeleteOne time I lost hope and given up was when I was trying to make Mexican Bread for a Spanish project. Overall, I attempted to make this bread about five or six times. I spent hours and hours wasting my time and getting frustrated. I wasted numerous amounts of ingredients and something was always wrong each time. The dough would not rise or after I baked it, it would come out all mushy. I felt so frustrated and pissed off as I continued to try again and again. It was almost as if I was progressively indulging myself in anger. Each attempt at making the bread got increasingly worse as I would quickly and irritably throw ingredients into the bowl and furiously mix. At one point, I felt like I had to go crazy and throw items all over the kitchen. As I got angrier, my mind strayed from cooking to, in general, Spanish class. I kept contemplating about how Spanish was such a useless class and blaming all my troubles on Spanish class. Eventually I gave up and decided to try again the next day. This was the first step in overcoming my despair. Simply leaving the kitchen and getting my mind off Spanish. After getting a good night’s sleep, and attempted once more to cook. This time with the help of my mom, who is obviously a better cooker. This was the next step in leaping over my difficulties. Obtaining help from others helped me get passed the fact that I spent so much time the other day glooming over my efforts. With the help of my mom, not only did I successfully make bread but also forgot about all the negative feelings obtained from the despair of baking bread on my own. At this point, I feel like whenever I can not accomplish a task on my own, the answer is not to give up but to get help from the millions of people around me.
ReplyDeleteWhen school is mentioned, I immediately think of stress. For me, the two go hand in hand. My parents always tell me that they will never be mad about a grade that I receive as long as I try my best. But, since I also know that getting good marks will make them proud, I sometimes get too caught up in the scores that my teachers give me. In an effort to please my parents, I lose sight of what is important and forget about the value of understanding the material that I am learning. During these times, when the letter grade at the top of my assignment is of the utmost importance, I find that I am much more susceptible to despair.
ReplyDeleteIn virtually every class, I go through phases where my mark seems like the most important thing in the world. However, at the beginning of this school year, I was especially focused on the grades I got in biology. All term I feared that I would get below an A in science. I studied with this in mind and always reminded myself that I had to do well on the next test. This did not make for a good learning experience, because I was so caught up in the grade that I had to get on my next test that I became unable to retain any of the information that I was studying. Since the grade was all I cared about, biology class became less fun, and I entered a period of despair. I was especially unhappy when I did not get the grade I had hoped for. In the end, everything worked out and I did in fact pull off and A for the term. However, this whole experience was a huge wake up call.
In order to get out of my period of despair, I knew that I had to find a way to make biology class fun. So, during semester two, I took a different approach to studying. Instead of thinking about the grade I had to receive on my next text, I concentrated on the material I was learning. I quickly found that the facts I was being taught were extremely fascinating. And, shortly after, biology class became more fun than a burden. Now, when I get into a slump at school, I lighten my spirits by remembering this situation in biology. Some say that high school is a time to learn from your mistakes and prepare for the future. During the first semester of my sophomore year, I finally understood exactly what these people meant.
The definition of despair is to lose all hope or confidence. There have been many times in my life in which I have been in despair. The feeling of being in despair and losing all your hope in a certain situation is a very bad feeling to have. The human nature is to succeed and be better than others. When you just cannot do something you really want to you feel terrible. One moment of despair that I remember was last year. This was when the Celtics were against the Lakers in the 2010 NBA Finals. The game was the seventh game of the series and the winner would become champions of the world. During the game the Celtics were dominating the Lakers and it looked like the game was over. As the time was passing by, the Lakers started scoring and scoring until the Celtics finally lost the game. In the closing minutes of the game I really lost all of my hope in my favorite basketball team. I was in despair for a week or so and I lost all hope in basketball at that point. The feeling of losing was awful and I gave in to despair. I got over this time of lost hope and I finally started feeling better. This was not the only time when I gave into despair. Another time when I lost all hope was more important. In the summer when my family friends were visiting us from Turkey, the flight was flying in the middle of a thunderstorm. I am always terrified of flying during a thunderstorm. The scheduled time of arrival passed and I thought to myself that something bad happened. At this moment I was feeling sad and I gave into despair. I hate it when I give into despair. I lost all hope and I thought the plane had gotten hit by lighting and crashed. Waiting at the airport for hours was exhausting and frightening. When I finally saw that the plane had arrived safely, I felt so much better and I gained all my hope at last.
ReplyDeleteWhen discussing despair and losing hope, one specific situation comes to my mind. I have lost hope in myself on numerous occasions because of this circumstance, but all I could do is get over it and hope for a second chance. The thing I am talking about is theater, and being cut from shows. Sometimes in life the thing that brings you the most joy and happiness, can also bring you the most sadness and despair. Theater is my passion, the feeling I get when I am onstage is indescribable, it is like I am flying and no one can ever bring me down. But when I get cut from shows, it hits me extremely hard. While I have auditioned for many shows, the show that hurt the most to be cut from was in fifth grade. I was auditioning for the show The Wiz. It was being put on by Open Door Theater, which is a local theater company that was open to everybody, including kids with special needs and adults. I thought since that was the case I would get in no problem. After my audition I had felt so confident in myself. I was proud of the dancing I did, and the acting was good too, but I thought I had especially rocked the singing. I thought with this confidence I surely made it. The next weekend the cast list went up. When I did not see my name on the list I was devastated. I could not control myself. I felt horrible, because I had never thought something I loved could make me feel that way. I had so much resentment for everyone that had made it, and I promised myself I would never see the show, and I would never audition for any show ever again. Clearly this was an irrational and impulsive decision on my part, but when you are so young and have the thing you like most “taken away” from you cannot help but act impulsively. But in a way I am glad I experienced that, because I learned from that experience, and although I still have lots of “audition” anxiety I still put myself out there and try my best, and if I do not make it I know now it is because I am not perfect for the role. But I know there are roles out there for me, and I will never find them unless I try and believe in myself.
ReplyDeleteThere never really was I time when I lost hope. I always seem to pick myself up and continue living. There was this one time when I had procrastinated an English assignment. I had to create a poster that summarizes the choice book that I chose. I decided to read Eragon by Christopher Paolini. Since I could not think of a good example of symbolism in the story or relate it back to English class, I put it off until the day before it was due. The teacher presented the students with a boring rubric and I spent most of that day staring at it, imagining some coincidence that would push back the due date. Of course, that would never come. Then, I tried to find excuses to avoid explaining some coincidental fact between Eragon and English. The pictures were placed and replaced on the piece of poster border and the picture of Eragon and his dragon Saphira changed every two minutes as I colored in the scales. I would then get bored and read some magazines until I realized how late it was. I felt desperate, thinking that I would never get the assignment done in time. For a few seconds, I felt panic as I realized that I may not finish my project in time. I continued procrastinating until I could not stand the panic and started working on the symbolism and connections. When I finally finished the paragraphs on symbolism, I connected the computer to the printer. After I turned on the printer, I recognized the red flashing light on the printer that notified me to refill the ink. I was ready to give in panic that I felt and sat down on my bed to procrastinate some more. Finally I decided to gather all the enthusiasm I had left and hoped that I would have good luck tomorrow and get the project done. I turned on the computer again to spend more grueling time on the computer to finish connecting the book to English class. I stored the essays on an usb stick and dreamt dreams with fluffy thunder clouds and angry English teachers. The next day, I felt better when I skipped lunch to run to the library and print out the last few pieces of my project. I finally turned in the poster with a timid smile and cheered when could finally forget about the project.
ReplyDeleteI have given into despair on numerous occasions in my life. One time that stands out to me is when I went to a Celtics game about six years ago on my birthday against the Spurs. I was very excited for this game because I loved the Celtics and there was nothing better than watching the game with friends to me. The game ended up being a blowout with the Celtics losing by around thirty points. This was crushing for me because I had been a Celtics fan for years, and it was very tough to support them when they were losing by this much game after game. I was almost about to give into despair and quit being a fan, but I stuck with the team and hoped for the best. Then in 2008, the Celtics traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen who combined with Paul Pierce and the rest of the veteran Celtics team. This duo worked together to bring an NBA Championship back to Boston for the first time in over twenty years. This championship finally ended the suffering that Celtics fans endured for many years, and I am glad that I did not give into despair when they were struggling. Another time that I gave into despair was when I did not make the basketball team in 8th grade. I had been playing basketball for six years, and I thought that I was a lock for making the team. I did not have a very good tryout, and the coach did not put me on the team. When I look back at it now, I realize that it really was not a big deal, but back then, it was a big deal to me. I was extremely upset when I found out that I did not make the team, and I was considering quitting basketball for good. However, I did not give into despair, and I kept working hard towards my next goal which was making the freshman basketball team. I ended up making the team which was very satisfying knowing that my hard work paid off, and I did not give into despair.
ReplyDeleteNot many times in my life have I lost hope in anything. The only time that I can recall is when I broke my elbow at camp. After they put the elbow back into place I asked the doctor if my arm would be ok and his response made my heart drop. He said that I might have permanent nerve damage to my lower arm for the rest of my life. At that moment I lost hope in my arm. I just did not know what to think at that moment. Do I feel sad, angry, disappointed, or nothing at all. I was numb when he gave me the grim news. He explained that the nerve cord that controls your lower arm ran right along the bone that I broke and there was no way to tell if damage had been done. I was thinking that all of the things that I took for granted might be taken away from me. All of the sports I played would be out of my life and many other enjoyable activities would be out of the question. On the car ride home I was able to move my fingers slightly so I knew that I at least had some mobility of my fingers. The doctor was not able to see me for a couple of days and those were some of the most nerve racking days of my life. Once I met with my doctor he said that no permanent damage had been done and my nerves were fine. He also said that I was extremely lucky that the bone did not cut through the nerve cord when I broke away from the rest of the elbow. Through months and months of physical therapy I recovered almost all of the motion in my elbow and arm. Hard and painful work was required to go back to normal again
ReplyDeleteI’ve had a pretty good life and therefore have never really had a true moment of despair where I have completely given up like Edna. The closest experiences would be when I am frustrated or discouraged by something such as right now. Just seconds ago I had to choose a topic to write about for my blog but I really couldn’t decide what to write about so I just kept thinking about how frustrating it was. This is when it hit me because my moment of despair was right then because I had to do my English homework and could not think of what to right about. I lost hope because I assumed my blog would be stupid and not reach the word limit. This was frustrating and discouraging seeing as we are getting graded on this. I was also annoyed at myself for leaving it for the last minute again and not giving myself enough time to do the homework. But instead of giving up I just used the ideas that I already had about how hard it was to write about a time of despair. Another thing that helped was thinking about how lucky I was to really not have a time of despair in my life and that even things that had seemed traumatic in the past really did not matter in a few years. From this enlightening experience I’ve learned that when things seem like a big deal they are probably not and will be laughable in time. Perseverance and hard work are work are always the best ways to get out of a time when a person looses hope. In Edna’s case women were not really allowed to do that much and could not help themselves fix the problems in their lives. So it is easy to see why Edna lost hope in the end.
ReplyDeleteDespair is the feeling someone gets when all their hope is lost. There aren't many situations that made me lose all of my hope though. Even when my team was losing in a game or when I injure myself, I never truly lost all of my hope; there was always a little hope lingering inside me. However, there is one time when I did feel an extreme amount of despair.
ReplyDeleteI had just lived in China for two years, not speaking a word of English or thinking about English at all, and I was told that I was moving back to the US. I came back thinking nothing would change and I would fit in perfectly well. Well, I would be proven very wrong my first few weeks back. I tried to talk to some of my friends and I was wondering why they were giving me such weird looks. Then I just realized I was just blabbering nonsense. I had forgotten how to speak English. I learned it before I went to China, but the 2 years I spent in China made me forget. I thought I would never be able to fit in or make any new friends. I lost all hope in my ability to live a normal life. I thought I would never be able to communicate with anyone, be it my friends, my teachers, or anyone else. I would just sit around with no one to talk to all alone. I had given up for a time. However, after a few days of feeling sorry for myself, I pulled out of my despair. I realized that sitting around wouldn't accomplish anything at all and decided to take action. I began learning to speak English again and I begin learning how to communicate again. After 2 months of learning to speak again, I went to go see my friend and began talking with him again. I think we were both blown away to see that I could talk without just speaking jibberish. I learned that it is never a good idea to give into despair, even though it may seem like it's the easy choice. unfortunately for Edna, she took that easy choice and gave in.
One time I lost hope and gave up was when my math teacher would not let me use a calculator on my math tests. I felt completely hopeless and frustrated. I cannot do the math without a calculator, my brain just does not work that way. My math grades began falling off dramatically. I began getting nothing but F’s because I could not do any of the math without a calculator. My teacher would not give me partial credit on any of the problems that I got wrong. I either had to do the calculations right, or fail. I became very distraught. I began to think that I was awful at math, and would never be able to do it right. I was able to do the complicated calculations and understand how to do the problems, but without a calculator I invariably got the problems wrong. I thought that I would never do well in math, and because of this I would not be able to get into some of the other classes I wanted to take when I switched schools. I began to give up, and my math grades got worse. I told anyone who would listen that I could not do math. Some people tried to reassure me that I was not actually bad at math, but that I was just bad at arithmetic, but because the two were so closely connected I vehemently denied that I could do any of it. I began to give up on everything. I tried harder in science and history, hoping to make up my deficit there, but my math teacher was also my English teacher so I began to give up on English too. I was aware at that point that when I switched schools my math level and my science level would be closely connected and that gave me even less hope that I would do well at anything. If I was so bad at math, then I wouldn’t be able to do well in science either and I had already proven to myself that I had to be in Honors science. I felt like everything was snowballing. Because I was not allowed to use a calculator I was bad at math, I gave up in English and I began stressing about science. This one small change destroyed my hope for everything in high school. Eventually I was able to prove to my math teacher that I really did need a calculator and he allowed me to use one again. After that I was able to get back on track and get mostly A’s in math, and I felt better about all my other classes too, but I continued to deny being any good at math, and I knew that without the calculator everything would fall apart.
ReplyDeleteOne time I had lost hope was actually quite recently. It was the week of tennis tryouts and the weather was not fantastic. On top of that I had not played any tennis outside because they had put the nets up one or two days before. Coming into the tryouts I was pretty confident that if I didn’t screw up I would have a spot on the varsity team. Of course the first day, the weather was cold, muscles were tight and I ended up choking. I lost my first two challenge matches that day and went home very disappointed with myself and very angry. I even considered quitting tennis and just tossing my 7 years of tennis out the window. I felt really mad because the kids I lost to I definitely could have beaten, but I had been too nervous and lost both of them. I felt like I was just going to do terrible during all of tryouts and only make the JV team which I was on freshman year. Thankfully I did not give into despair and I did not give up. I talked to my friends and they convinced me not to quit and just to push through try outs. I agreed with them, I had worked too hard this year to just give up everything over one day. I had to bring everything I had on the next day. That’s exactly what I did, I told myself to forget about whatever had happen the last day and just go out there and try my best. The remaining days of tryouts I was able to win all my games, and make up for my bad start. I ended up making the team, but the important thing is that I had lost hope, but did not give into despair and fought back to make the team.
ReplyDeleteThe only time that I have ever lost hope in my life was when the doctors could not diagnose my grandmothers illness five years ago. She lived in Michigan and her town did not have the best doctors so they did not know what she had. My mom went up to get her to bring her here so she could get the help she needed for her health. When she arrived at the house she looked totally different than the last time she was here. She was awfully skinny, she was skin and bones, and I knew that there was something wrong with her health. We all thought she had lung cancer because she was a heavy smoker all her life but the doctors could not find anything. My grandmother did not want to do all the treatments the doctors wanted her too. With no gain in finding a cure for my grandmother and seeing her get more sick everyday I lost hope that they would find a cure to save her life. That time for my family was unpleasant we all were worried for my grandmother, and that year I became isolated from the world and my social life. I felt heartbroken that I had lost hope in my grandmother getting better. I did not want to lose hope but seeing her getting sicker it was difficult not to. I did not want to be around my friends or anyone because I was depressed that one of my family members was dying and I could not do anything to help her except just be with her. It was May 17 2006 when she died. The whole family was devastated by her death, but the part that helped us get over this hard time in our life was that she did not have to suffer anymore. She left us to be in a better place where she was not in pain anymore, she had went to heaven, and she will always be looking out for my family and I. It helped me to realize that she was in a better place to get over that time because I only wanted her to get better and she got better when she passed.
ReplyDeleteI try to avoid falling into despair. Hope is the only thing an individual can hold onto when in distress. It keeps them going and helps them believe a change will occur for the better. Nevertheless about 5 or 6 years ago, I often fell into despair. My parents would always disagree and yell at each other over the smallest things. I would sit in my room doing homework, listening to the arguing and wishing that it would soon come to an end. However, overtime it only got worse. For some time, I thought my parents might want a divorce. The more I thought about it, the more sorrow I felt. I could not imagine my life without having both my parents by my side at all times. Instead of believing that things would change, I was pessimistic and only thought of the worst possible outcomes. My grades dropped and my friends began to notice something was wrong. But they were there to help. They were comforting and just being around them helped me forget about my troubles. Nevertheless, my problems would always seem to catch back up to me when I got home. A little girl saved my family though. Around this time, my little sister was about one year old. She would begin to cry whenever she heard my parents fight, halting the dispute in its place. In order to keep my sister happy, my parents realized they could not split up and had to do everything they could to hold them self back from starting an argument. From then on, the arguing decreased dramatically. They got along for our sake and thanks to my sister, our family was saved. Our parents’ love for us kids is what in the end prevailed.
ReplyDeleteThe only times I have really given into despair is when school begins to overwhelm me. Very often, I have weeks of school where I have so many tests and quizzes and projects, it seems like I will never be able to get any of it done. Instead of being organized and trying to look for a positive side to my problems, I become so stressed out and upset, it seems like the world is going to end. Giving into despair feels horrible. It felt like no one cared about me and my problems were unimportant. It made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for the classes I was taken, and I’d gotten myself into a mess. Then, with those feelings, I started to isolate myself from my friends, since I didn’t want to bring them down also. It amazed me how despair in one aspect of my life, school, could affect almost every aspect of my life. It affected my social life, by isolating myself. It affected my family life, since I became unresponsive and rather rude to my family. It affected my sleep, since I was staying up late working, and then I found myself unable to fall asleep because of the stress I was worrying about. It affected my health, because of the sleep deprivation and I was so busy working and stressing, I wasn’t eating right or exercising. Really, the whole ordeal was scary. It’s very scary to not feel in control of your life or your happiness. Everything seemed to be going wrong and I couldn’t change it, because I didn’t know how. Pulling myself out of this feeling was one of the hardest things I had to do. The first time it happened was right before winter break, so during the break I didn’t have to worry about school and or grades, which made my life much easier. I was so happy to just be able to relax and spend time with my friends. In other times, when there wasn’t a break, finally the homework load would let up, and I began to relax. I think really though, it was my mental strength that saved me. I convinced myself to look at the bright side of things and talk to my friends about it, who told me what I was feeling was normal, and I just needed to work through it and think about things that made me happy. They were right. Now, when school overwhelms me, I just think about how summer is coming and school won’t matter anymore. Well, for a few months.
ReplyDeleteOne time I gave in to despair was at a music camp I went to. On the second day after my lesson with my new teacher, he gave me a piece to work on and he told me to surprise him and play it the best I could at the next lesson. Around this time, I was also part of a small jazz group of 5 people as another class. Since the group was small, we all had to do improvised solos in each song we played. I had never done one before and was very nervous, but the other kids in the group also hadn’t improv soloed before either. Our instructor taught us how, but while the other members were able to pick up on it quickly I couldn’t because of my nerves. I became depressed over these two things because I didn’t have enough confidence. When I practiced the piece my teacher gave me, it always sounded boring and the same and I felt that I wouldn’t be able to live up to what my teacher said. I also couldn’t spit out a solo no matter how much I tried or thought about it, and I felt like crying whenever we went over it in the jazz group. I fell into despair because of my lack of confidence and I felt that I would never improve and that I was a bad musician. After sitting around during my practice hour and feeling sorry for myself for a while, I realized that I would never get better if I didn’t do anything. If I just sat around then I wouldn’t get better. I was able to get over it and do my best for the rest of the time at camp by just throwing out my worries for a few minutes and just thinking about the music, instead of not having enough confidence or about what other people would think. I still don’t have a lot of confidence, but I know that hard work pays off and I always try my best.
ReplyDeleteEver since fourth grade, I have always been placed in a different class or wing than all my other friends. Year after year, I hoped that the following year will be different. That hope vanished every time I read the class list posted on the front door of the school because once again, all my friends magically wound up in the same class…again. Then in seventh grade, I gave up wishing to be in the same wing as all my friends and I decided to do something about it. I made new friends. The reason I couldn’t do this in the previous years is because elementary school has a limited number of people, and it’s the same people you see year after year. It’s not like junior high or high school where you’re surprised with meeting people in your grade that have been there just as long as you have. For the first few months, I was angry and sad. Mostly angry though. I thought it was so unfair that I could never be in the same classes as them. They would be talking about the affairs of their wings and I would just have to sit there quietly due to my inability to add to the conversation. After I had had enough, I pushed past the anger and I opened up my eyes to all the other people that I could be friends with. One normal day in gym, I walked up to a girl in gym (who had been there for the past few months) and I said hi. And ever since that day, we have been best friends, even until today. So the big lesson I learned is that I shouldn’t just sit there hoping for something that I knew wouldn’t happen. If I stopped wishing and started opening my eyes to all the opportunities, then I wouldn’t need to be hopeful. I had felt happy to found a friend for the rest of the year, and when it was almost time to return to school, I went up to the paper posted on the wall to see if she was in my wing too…and she wasn’t. She ended up in the same wing as all my other friends. Once again, I was mad, but I remembered the scene from last year and I continued to make more friends while keeping the ones I wasn’t in touch with as much.
ReplyDeleteMy grades in Biology Honors last year made me lose a lot of hope. On my first test in the class, I think I got a C, but it was only the beginning of the year and I thought I could bring up my grade. As the year went on, I noticed my test grades, counting for 70% of my term grade, were constantly C’s and D’s. I did not realize how hard the class was going to be for me, after I convinced my parents to let me override from my earth science H recommendation. Somebody told me, this year, that after first term you were allowed to drop to biology AE, a sophomore class, and I really regret not knowing that before. There was one test on which I got a B, and it made me very happy and motivated me to try to do better in the class. From that time, I got a tutor and even had my dad help me with every single section. After trying various study technique, my grades still continued stay in the same range. I remember getting an F on one test, and that made me lose all hope that I could do any better. Before every test or practical, I was really frustrated and stressed because it was really hard for me to memorize all that detailed information. What helped me get past that time was just thinking about how I would never have to take biology again for at least another few years. I somehow managed to get through the year and passed the class, and I was relieved of the torture of biology first period every day.
ReplyDeleteDuring my free time, I usually stop by the hospital I volunteer at even if I’m not scheduled to be there. Over last summer, I was told to go talk a little boy who was diagnosed with leukemia a couple of months ago. I was supposed to go talk to him and give him company, and just take his mind off of his disease. For many weeks, we sat there talking about his favorite cars while watching numerous Disney movies. He seemed to be an average child living a normal life, but inside he was very weak and fighting extremely hard. However, he was always smiling and taking about the wonderful memories he had of his mom when he was sill healthy. I thought that since this boy had so much hope, he was sure to make it through. Since he was so positive, he made me positive about everything as well. About halfway through the summer, he had to go into chemotherapy for his second time. Being so little, he had no idea what was happening. I constantly told him that he would get better and he could go home to his parents and sister soon. To be honest, I had no idea what was going to happen, but I couldn’t tell him the truth. After a few weeks, the doctors told me that the leukemia cells were quickly taking over his body and he only had a few weeks left in his life. I couldn’t believe that such an innocent and sweet life was being taken away from such a young child, and it was about then I lost all hope. I thought the doctor’s decision was final, and everything the doctor said would be true. The doctors decided it was best if the little boy didn’t know, but I couldn’t help but feel bad for the boy. I began treating him differently, and I tried to help him make the best out of every moment he had. He noticed this and commented one day, but I still couldn’t tell him what was wrong. I could see him becoming weaker, because the Lego castles we used to build would never be finished because he lost all his energy. I knew he would be gone in a few weeks, and didn’t want to push anything. However, he sustained the hope he had in himself and he constantly told himself that he would get better and go home to his parents. Just three days ago, I was in the hospital volunteering. I was about to go to the little boy’s room to see how he was doing. This little boy then comes up to me and just gives me a hug, and says thanks. Today, he’s at home doing whatever he wants because his hope brought him through all the challenges.
ReplyDeleteOne, who is strong, shouldn’t give in to the feelings of despair. I don’t fancy myself as one who often loses hope in something that they want to accomplish. When you lose hope in something you care about, what does that say about yourself? Will other hard decisions in your life turn into acts of misdirection and indecision? As kids, the choices we make will ultimately not matter in our lives. Yet, we place too much thought into how they might effect us, when in reality, the next day might be different. We crave short term gratification, yet teenagers deprive themselves of self advocation because of their inability to continue pushing on in the face of slight adversity.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this ideal of living life to adapt to the future seems commonplace and thought out to me currently, this thought process didn’t dawn on me until much later in my life. Up until this point, I was getting stressed out about ultimately idiotic process in my life, most commonly taking place in school. Things like public speaking and social events had me worrying about the potential problems and embarrassments that could arise from the situation.
I took a step back one day to look at why I had these thoughts, and I realized, it’s only because you are merely told by your peers and teachers that public speaking is a difficult adventure, or that social events are a minefield of embarrassments and awkwardness. I was loosing hope of myself being like the other kids, who could seemly speak to people with confidence and class.
The problem stems from the fact that social classes still arise today. Instead of social classes being occupational, as adults have it, kids have to deal with the social class of age. You are told to respect the upper classmen. Elementary school, you had to respect the kingly 5th graders. Middle School, the 8th graders are the royals. High school tends to blur the lines between social classes. Hope is gained back in high school. Despair no longer runs your life. Confidence is gained, friends are made, overcoming adversity is achieved.
Although I’d like to be able to say I never lose hope, it’s untrue. One time in my life that I lost all hope was way back in third grade, when I went to private school. The school was tiny, only around two hundred kids in preschool through eighth grade. The classes were multi-age, and once you get put in a class, you stick with that class, the exact same kids, for three years. There was only one other girl in my grade in my class, and she was my best friend. We were what one would call inseparable, conjoined at the hip. We did everything together, had the same taste in clothes, music, and school. But one tragic day in March of third grade my best friend informed me that she was moving schools. I completely lost all hope of having friends. I went three years with basically only one best friend. I had some friends, more like acquaintances, in my class, but they weren’t her. I gave up all hope of my happiness, all hope of wanting to go to school anymore. What was I supposed to do for the rest of the year? The feeling was terrible. No one understood me. My parents would tell me, “Monique, you can make a new friend,” or, “what’s the big deal? You can still see her on weekends.” They just didn’t get it, no one did. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, and I just felt alone. I’m not going to lie and say it was easy making a new friend and fitting in with the younger girls, because it wasn’t. I stuck it out the rest of the year making friends with a couple of girls in my class who were a year younger. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected when I had first heard the news of my friend changing schools, but it certainly wasn’t easy not being able to have someone there for me all the time. I sat with girls in my grade from other classes, and made some really good friends by the end of the year. Although it was hard for me, I looked past my sorrow and focused on who I could enjoy the year with, rather than sulking around alone, hating my life and school. It turned out to be a fine year, and although I lost hope for awhile, I regained it and used it to my advantage, making close friends who I still talk to today.
ReplyDeleteIn the year 2004, something very special happened, that was very very close to not happening. In October the Boston Red Sox took on the New York Yankees in the American League Championship. Led by a cast of characters including Kevin “Cowboy Up” Millar, Johnny “We’re All Idiots” Damon, as well as Pedro Martinez, David “Big Papi” Ortiz, and Manny Ramirez, the Red Sox had as good of a chance to win this year as anytime in the past. After a late season rally to clinch the Wild Card, and easily beating the Angels in the first round of the playoffs, the Red Sox were set to take on their bitter rivals in what was to become one of the greatest series of all time. The first game was played in New York, and the favored Yankees won, taking both of the first two games played in New York. Now as the rules say the best of seven series traveled back to Boston for three games before traveling back to New York for the last two. It was game three, I remember the most. I went to the game expecting a heating nail biter between two great historic franchises. However, I got something very unexpected, a nineteen to eight defeat, the Red Sox have never in my days looked worse, or at least in worse shape to win a series. After losing nineteen to eight to the New York Yankees, the franchise with the most World Series wins of all time, things looked grim for the Red Sox. After weaving my way through the drunken hysteric crowd, I thought to myself during the long train ride home that the series is over, and we will have to wait until next year. I did not even bother to watch game four, after game three I had fallen into despair and given up hope. Even after the game four comeback win, I felt no confidence or hope, knowing how bad they could play, there was no way for them to comeback. Even after game 5 and 6 wins, I still did not believe. It was hard to be with everyone who had so much hope, all of red sox nation believed, but I did not. It was not until Johnny Damon’s game seven grand slam that I realized they had a shot. The rolling Red Sox ended setting history as the only team to come back from 3-0 down in a MLB playoff series, and even went on to sweep the Cardinals in the World Series to end the near century long drought.
ReplyDeleteLosing all hope can be one of the worst experiences. One day, I was on a bike trip up in Maine, me and my biking group were in the middle of nowhere in northern Maine. We might have been passed by 20 cars the entire day. The mountains were immense and I had a very long day of biking in front of me. Just after breakfast, I flew down a hill. I remember I hit 40 miles per hour and I could not see the objects on the ground. I hit a nail and my tire blew out. I soon changed the bike tire. Unfortunately, the nail broke in my bike tire. The fragment of nail punctured every new bike tube (which holds the air in the bike tires). I soon destroyed every spare tire tube and used every patch in a patch kit I had brought with me. I had to bike with a flat for over 15 miles. After being so frustrated with hearing the noise of a flat tire and seeing mountain after mountain, I felt I wanted to go home. The other people in my group were having similar fates. One boy’s gear snapped and broke his gear system. Our trip leaders were assisting us in repairing our bikes and we were not making progress towards reaching our camp. One girl, became separated from the group. Her chain on her bike soon snapped. When we thought we were never going to make it to camp and our final goal, Quebec City, one man in a very old pickup truck pulled up. He offered the girl a ride to the bike shop which was miles away. Frighten, she refused. The mysterious man soon tracked down our trip leader. He later went back to his house and brought a giant trailer. By this point in the day, it was a godsend. I was so exhausted because biking on a flat tire is never easy. Our group loaded our mangled bikes into his trailer and went to his house. This man was the stereotypical recluse. His name was C.W. Tuck and in his house, he had taxidermied heads of every animal in the forest. Our group and C.W., with the appropriate supplies toiled on our bikes and miraculously, fixed all of them. We put my bike tire underwater and found the troublesome leak. The thought of being able to continue our trip was very uplifting. Our group soon left his house in the late afternoon, and made amazing time to our camp. We made it just before dark and he even brought us pizza. This experience has restored my trust in strangers and never give up hope. When trips turn into adventures and do not go according to plan, I know never give up hope. The goodness of others or just pure luck will help me though rough times. Our group reached our final goal and we soon sent C.W. Tuck a gift. When times look bleak, I know that it is very far from over.
ReplyDeleteI have been in despair a few times in my life but most of the time it is caused by my favorite sports teams. As a generation we have been lucky enough to see 3 Super Bowls, 2 World Series, and 1 NBA Championship come to the city of Boston. But I always want another one and every time that a team gets eliminated, it is depressing. The one team I vividly remember giving up hope on was the 2004 Red Sox. They were down 3-0 in the ALCS to the New York Yankees, a team we could never beat in the playoffs. This was so depressing because the Red Sox had such a good team that year and they had lost to the Yankees in the playoffs the previous year on a walk off home run after being up 5 runs. The first two games of the series were close but the third game the Red Sox got blown out 19-8. I remember my parents invited some of their friends over to our house and during the game and especially after, everyone was for the most part silent and shocked. Then even in Game 4, the Red Sox were down by 1 run with the best closer in baseball, Mariano Rivera coming in to close the series. But then Kevin Millar walked, Dave Roberts pinch ran and stole second and then Bill Mueller singled to tie the game. Then all of a sudden, there was life in Fenway Park and virtually all of Boston. Then David Ortiz hit the walk off home run in the 11th and then in the next game. In Game 6, Curt Schilling pitched with a torn tendon in his ankle and a bloody sock. He shut the Yankees down and the Red Sox won Game 6. Then in Game 7, Derek Lowe pitched well and Johnny Damon hit two home runs finishing the come back, sending the Red Sox to the World Series where they won their first World Series in 86 years. It went from one of the most depressing weeks of my life to one of the greatest so quickly. It did not lift my grief and despair but an entire city and nation of Red Sox fans as well. Before Game 4, everyone who was a Sox fan walked around so depressed and glum. Then the day after, it was like someone flipped a switch, and people were happy and energetic. They had won one game and the whole series felt different. I felt nervous in most of the games because it was still illogical to think we would win the series. After that game though, I knew we had gotten past the feeling of hopelessness and eventually would move on to the feeling of success.
ReplyDeleteI don’t really like to dwell on times of despair however there is one recurring situation in my life that always makes me very upset. Whenever I have to leave my dad after visiting him my heart just feels heavy because I know it’s going to be a long six months before I see him again. I have always been a daddy’s girl and it’s really hard to say goodbye. Because it’s always at the international terminal in Sydney airport, my dad can’t come through with Lucy and I to customs and we say our goodbye’s just outside. I know it’s hard for dad as well so I try to keep a brave face until we’re through the doors and he can’t see us anymore. Although, the officials that check the passports must think I’m weird because by the time we reach the front of the line, I’m a total mess. Consistently, the flight after saying goodbye to my dad I get sick – once it was so bad they had to find a doctor on the plane and put me on oxygen. That was probably the most helpless and desperate I have ever felt. I think that, although my mind is trying to be hopeful and look forward to all of the exciting activities in the US, my heart is in despair and my whole body exhibits that sadness and emotional stress. The worst part about it is that it’s going to keep happening. I’m pretty emotional with goodbyes at the best of times and it’s tough to have the same, hard goodbye two or three times in a year. My driving force to get through these rough times is both my sister, Lucy, and my parents in America – my mum and step-dad. They’re all so supportive and understanding and Lucy is going through the exact same emotional ride as me so even though it’s a goodbye, we’re not alone. The less I think about it, the easier it is to leave. If I can distract myself long enough to get back to my real life in the US then my sadness keeps from becoming despair, but if I think about it too much and work myself up it’s difficult to shake the heartache of missing my daddy.
ReplyDeleteGoing through times of despair or hopelessness is never easy, but thankfully this has not happened to me very often. One of the few times that I felt despair happened just last year, when I took honors geometry. I have been good at math for as long as I can remember, and I had never gotten below an A minus before taking geometry. This is why it affected me so deeply when I started to do badly. On the very first test, I got a C, despite studying for a while. I did not do much better for the rest of the term, and I ended up getting a C plus for the term. This led to me losing hope that I could continue to do well in math, and I considered dropping down into a lower class. My parents were very supportive, however, and I ended up deciding to keep on trying to do well. I studied even more than I had before, and I got a B for the second term, which felt like a significant achievement. I even managed to get an A minus on the midyear. I was finally doing well but, unfortunately, my grades dropped in the third term, and I did even worse than I had done during the first term. This is when I really lost hope. It felt like I was back at square one, except now I could not even drop down because it was so late in the year. Yet again, my parents supported me, but even they could not comfort me. Because I felt hopeless, I stopped studying for tests, but strangely enough I actually started to do better than I was doing before. Somehow, I managed to get an A minus for the last term. Interestingly enough, I ended up escaping despair not because I was working harder, but instead because I got lucky.
ReplyDeleteLosing hope is one of the worst feelings I have ever felt. All is lost and the world feels like it is crashing down. I remember a time a couple years ago when I gave in to despair and it ended up saving my life. My time of total despair happened at a birthday pool party in fifth grade. I had just come back from a year in China and was looking forward to seeing some of my friends for the first time in a year. I arrived a little late to the party and everyone was already there. Walking to the pool, I could not help but feel a bit nervous. I did not know how my friends would receive me. Would they still be my good friends or would they be different? As I got in the pool, I made my way carefully across to where my friends were. They were all on noodles in the deep end playing a game until the birthday girl saw me. “Sarah!” she screamed as she swam out to meet me. The whole group came over and they each greeted me. One of my over excited friends was so happy to see me that she let out a scream and jumped onto my back. Already struggling to tread in the deep water, I now had extra weight weighing me down. I was not an experienced swimmer and yet my friend was expecting me to carry her. She was grabbing onto my shoulders tightly and I could not escape her grasp. My head was under the water and I was struggling to reach the surface. The air in my lungs was running out and my arms were getting tired from all the struggling. The more I struggled, the more my friend thought that I was just playing along. I could not do anything to get her off my back. Soon I felt lightheaded and I could no longer breathe. I felt hopeless because I could not do anything to reach the surface. With this feeling of hopelessness, I stopped struggling and prepared to meet my end. Losing hope that day in the pool was truly a scary experience because I thought that I was going to die. However, it turns out that when I lost hope and stopped struggling, my friend sensed that something was wrong. She could see that I had stopped moving so she got off me. I rushed to the surface and was able to breathe again.
ReplyDeleteA time when I gave up hope was when my soccer team lost in the final of a tournament. We were up 2-1 with two minutes left in the game. The field was wet after the rain and the other team took a shot from out side the box. The ball slid the whole way to the goal and when it got to the goalie it slipped right threw his hands and went right under him into our goal. That is when I started to lose hope in us winning the game. We went into over time and we almost scored twice. But the ball hit the goal post and did not go in. At the end we went in PK’s. I lost a little more hope at that time. The other team kicked first and scored then it was my turn. I kicked the ball just like in practice and it went in. Then the other team’s goalie stopped the next three shots we took. The only good thing was that the other team missed there shots as well. It came down to the other team and the scored on their last shot. I lost all hope when I saw the ball go in I lost all hope. There was no chance for us to try to win anymore. I got over it because I had to. I told my self that these things happen and that I would get it next time. I also got over it because the next week were came in first in our division and I completely forgot about the game the week before.
ReplyDeleteThough nothing really tragic has ever happened in my life, there have still been one or two times when life was terrible for me and I gave up hope in one way or another. For me, this happens occasionally when I have so much going on in my life that I can not successfully do everything. When I am doing something that I feel is important to my life and future, I will do everything in my power to avoid failure, as many people would. Because of this, I feel terrible when I do fail or when I am forced to give up, even if it is impossible for me to succeed in everything. Recently, there was a time when I was in this situation. There was a lot going on in school that I knew was important, such as tests and papers. There was a lot going on in my music life also, with a piano competition and other performance opportunities later on that were beginning to get on my mind also. This time was basically seemed like the climax of everything I was doing, and the result was that I had no time to relax, not even enough time to finish everything I had to do. It was an extremely difficult time, and there were points when I gave up hoping that I would be able to successfully make it. Ultimately, it became harder to do what I could get done. Luckily, everything subsided after a couple of weeks and life was almost back to normal. All of the despair was gone, and I had actually done pretty well. Looking back on it, I was as successful as I could have asked for: I won a prize in the piano competition, and I did a solid job of maintaining my grades – I think that term ended up being better than previous ones. Even though I felt terrible during the moment, like I would not be able to avoid failure, I realized at the end that I had done a great job. This, combined with the fact that life became easier afterward, is what allowed me to get through it and move on with life.
ReplyDeleteI believe that people lose hope the most when they lose someone close to them. In one year I had to unfortunate deaths in my family. The first one was my dog named Buster. Buster had been with me since I could remember. Whenever I was down he would come to me and try to play and when my parents were out, there was always someone to greet the door. The hardest part about his death was his struggle with age. For many years he couldn’t walk and barely got up just to drink. I began to lose hope after he couldn’t get onto the couch. Unfortunately, he never recovered and we later had to put him down. After his death I began to think about all the times I forced him to go away because I thought he was being annoying. I never put it into perspective that he was trying to play and didn’t know better than to lick my face until I threw his toy ball.
ReplyDeleteThe most despair on my dad’s side of the family occurred when my grandparents died. I had not known them well but my dad was very close to them. He lived with them all through college and did everything he could to accommodate them as much as they did for him. When I heard the news of their death I was saddened but didn’t know what to think of it as a 4 year old. I mostly lost hope because of the sadness I saw in my dad. When I was younger, he was always upbeat but when his parents died it was like he hit a roadblock. It took about a year, a few visits to their house, and hundreds of pictures to realize how lonely it was without them. Whenever I visited them during Christmas when I was a baby, my grandma was the most eager person to hold me. I finally began to appreciate how much they cared for me.
Both events caused great despair but these events made me reflect on life. I found out that yes it may be sad to lose people in life but it has to happen at sometime. Life is to short to be in despair for long durations every time a death happens.
In my life, there have been few instances in which I can truly say I felt despair. While momentary bouts of fear or despair may always be inevitable, and may seem scary, hindsight always reveals just how laughable these “terrible” moments are. For example, when I feel despair at the sight of interims on the kitchen table, I truly feel like the world is about to end. There is a certain sense of impending doom that seems to await me when my parents get home. But after they finally see the interims, and maybe scold me for them, I realize it really wasn’t that bad after all. Whatever punishments I may receive are short lived and pretty insignificant in the long run. A month later, looking back at the incident, I just laugh at how stupid it really was. The closest thing I may actually have felt to despair is the feeling of everything I have procrastinated suddenly being due. One weekend, I had to do both the majority of an English essay and a biology presentation all in the span of two short days. Needless to say, I felt pretty doomed when I realized that I had this massive volume of work due Monday. On top of that, I also had my regular homework, which took a pretty huge amount of time by itself. After working for the entirety of Saturday and Sunday, and finally completing all of my work, I realized that it really wasn’t that bad, and all I needed to do was sit down and finish my work. This happens pretty regularly, because I’m a pretty big procrastinator, but I don’t think I ever truly feel despair at the thought of finishing my projects. Sure, maybe I feel nervous, even a bit intimidated by the fact that I have no idea how to finish whatever may be due soon, but true despair, such as that felt by Edna, isn’t really a part of my life. Also, I believe in not taking the easy way out when in despair, but persevering, unlike edna. When faced with despair, instead of pushing onwards and persevering, she killed herself.
ReplyDeleteI have given into despair many different times in my life. When I was eight years old my dad and I went to a Celtics playoff game against the nets. I was really excited to go because it was a huge game for the Celtics. The only problem was they were getting killed the entire game and at one point were even down by 25 or 30. I gave up at halftime and did not want to stay anymore because I thought the game was over. My dad would not let us leave and he kept saying that the Celtics were going to comeback. Well if I did not listen to my dad I would have missed one of the greatest sports comebacks ever. Maybe I gave up but my dad and the Celtics did not. After the third quarter the Celtics were still down by 20 and at that point I was done, I wanted to go home and go to bed. We ended up staying and in the fourth quarter the Celtics made the greatest comeback ever in NBA playoff history. It was amazing, the entire stadium was going insane, and I easily could have missed all of it if my dad let me give into despair but he did not. My dad and I still joke about that night to this day, and without him one of the greatest memories of my life would not have happened. Another time I gave into despair was when I got lost at the beach. I was three years old and my family and I were staying in Hampton for the week. One day at the beach my sister and I were playing in the water away from our family. My parents called her over and she left me all alone. When I wanted to go back in I had no clue where everyone was. Instead of just staying calm I began running down the opposite side of the beach to find them. After a while I started freaking out and crying because I thought there was no way I would ever see my family again. I stopped run and just sat down and cried. Luckily I nice family saw me and asked to help me. They found I lifeguard for me and later the lifeguard brought me to my family. In both these situations I did give into despair but I was fortunate enough to have my dad making me stay at the game, and the family and lifeguard helping me find my family.
ReplyDeleteI have always felt like a confident person in my life who can get over anything that life throws at me. However, in one particular scenario in 6th grade, I had a tough time getting over my despair. It was the summer before 6th grade, and like every year, I was playing on my Baystate baseball summer league team. In the first 4 games of the season, our team was doing great. Also, I was playing really well. I had 3 home runs so far, including a game with a 3 run home run and a 2 run home run. So obviously, I was very excited for the season, I had a feeling it was going to be one of the best of my life. However, that is when the season took a turn for the worst. During a practice scrimmage, a particularly fast pitcher was pitching. I went to bunt, and as the ball came into the bat, my thumb was in the way. The ball smashed my thumb into the bat, and an excruciating amount of pain rushed through my hand. I immediately sensed something was wrong as I could not grip with my thumb. My mom took me to the hospital and after a long wait and several x-rays, the results were that my thumb was broken. The doctor told me I could not play baseball for 4 weeks. I was crushed. My season which had started off so well, and was only going to get better, was over. I was going to miss practically all of the season, and by the time I came back, I would have missed a lot of practice and not been as good as I could be. It was really a bad ending of my season and I was going to greatly miss playing. But I knew I had to overcome this. To show my support for my team without playing, I went to every single game that I could not play in. Although I could not play it felt good to be on the diamond and be watching my team. I endured the time out and when I came back from my injury I was excited. Although I did not hit any more home runs, I finished my season fine, with a few hits. It really was a challenge for me to endure missing all those games, but the despair I felt taught me a lesson on how to truly respect things because you don't know what you got till it's gone.
ReplyDeleteI am a pessimist. I lose hope very easily but I do not necessarily go into despair. It is stronger than just simply losing hope. As you have probably determined I am a horse person, every blog has some aspect to do with horses. So yes, yet again I am writing about them. I rode one particular horse, Secret, for nearly 3 whole years, which is a long time for someone that does not actually own that horse to ride it for. I mostly rode her, in the beginning, because for one thing no one else rode her, so I was sort of stuck on her, and also because I wanted to prove people wrong. Everyone that had ever laid eyes on Secret had a feeling that she was not the nicest horse, which only grew stronger when they got closer to her. She was a bit cranky, all the time. After I rode her for a while, my reasons for riding her changed, now I rode her because I actually liked riding her. She was still crabby, and at times it was sort of an abusive relationship but she would still come to me in the field, at her own leisurely pace. In a weird way we were friends, odd as that may be. One time last year, the owner had enough of Secret's attitude toward certain people; I am 99 percent positive that the people Secret disliked were those that disliked her. She gave me one last chance to give her one reason to keep Secret, and I blew it. My lesson one winter day went out to do hill work, Secret was being a bit difficult, and she flipped on me, in the literal flipping over backwards way, crushing me. I was fine, and so was Secret. But the owner was afraid that it could happen to someone else, and kicked Secret out of the barn. I did go into a state of despair, because it was my fault, I could have prevented it. Others tell me it was not, it was Secrets, but it really was my fault that she is gone now. She is still my favorite horse, and I still do say that it was my fault, only because it was, but it was in some ways a good thing. I realized that I had gotten so far behind everyone else, because I had to train Secret, she was young, and it gave me a chance to catch up and allowed me to try new things in horseback riding. But I also just got hope, because Secret may be coming back from her training with a friend of the owner that does not want her, which is a plus for me. And Secret and I are both currently lame, injured, so I can take care of her.
ReplyDeleteBy nature I am not a despairing person, but in my childhood I can find tiny aspects and analyze them. When one lives as a child, each and every trivial loss seems a cataclysm because one’s mind cannot wrap around the facts at this age and one has lived a life with too little in it. For example, once I lost a toy around the age of twelve, the details of which I do not need to get into. The point being, I was feeling down for almost a week because it cost eight dollars and was brand-new. In those days I did not have a single penny to my name and never bought anything for myself, so losing a toy felt to me as though I had betrayed my parents’ trust. I searched for it all around the house and yard but eventually blamed it on my brother, lashing out at my brother as a means to cope with my carelessness. He lashed back (verbally). I should have learned to accept my mistake by isolating myself to think it over, but at such times the attention given may have been too great. It seemed horrifying to think that one day I would be grown up and would look at my oldest toys, only to see that there was a gap in the collection. It was a small world.
ReplyDeleteMy mother did not tolerate altercations and sent my brother out to play soccer and me to play on my calculator. Between the three of us, the dispute had heated up and as soon as my father came home from work he was told that his boys had been quarrelling again. He gave us a good scolding. At this point I should have learned that in any conflict, almost everyone is responsible, yet no one is. That is, no one sought malicious intentions but that was what it predictably came to. Each of us was blinded by our own troubles. Had I actually thought this through, I would have been a real genius. Each family member was angry at the other, we kids and my mother and father in a little conflict triangle, and then myself against my brother. I also should have learned that to have self-control, the power of anger must be harnessed at will so that its forcefulness can be used in the right places- I should offend to punish and right one, but never simply to hurt for satisfaction. Hint: the satisfaction never comes.
That June, I met someone who taught me to take a step back and analyze everything and to think on all those clichés, truths so obvious that they become neglected but really antiquated poetic devices with clear meanings. These conflicts happened occasionally, as I can safely suspect of other households with innocent children. This new knowledge truncated the light conflict on my end, and so I grew up and matured.
I’m not so sure about my brother, but let’s not go there.
By nature I am not a despairing person, but in my childhood I can find tiny aspects and analyze them. When one lives as a child, each and every trivial loss seems a cataclysm because one’s mind cannot wrap around the facts at this age and one has lived a life with too little in it. For example, once I lost a toy around the age of twelve, the details of which I do not need to get into. The point being, I was feeling down for almost a week because it cost eight dollars and was brand-new. In those days I did not have a single penny to my name and never bought anything for myself, so losing a toy felt to me as though I had betrayed my parents’ trust. I searched for it all around the house and yard but eventually blamed it on my brother, lashing out at my brother as a means to cope with my carelessness. He lashed back (verbally). I should have learned to accept my mistake by isolating myself to think it over, but at such times the attention given may have been too great. It seemed horrifying to think that one day I would be grown up and would look at my oldest toys, only to see that there was a gap in the collection. It was a small world.
ReplyDeleteMy mother did not tolerate altercations and sent my brother out to play soccer and me to play on my calculator. Between the three of us, the dispute had heated up and as soon as my father came home from work he was told that his boys had been quarrelling again. He gave us a good scolding. At this point I should have learned that in any conflict, almost everyone is responsible, yet no one is. That is, no one sought malicious intentions but that was what it predictably came to. Each of us was blinded by our own troubles. Had I actually thought this through, I would have been a real genius. Each family member was angry at the other, we kids and my mother and father in a little conflict triangle, and then myself against my brother. I also should have learned that to have self-control, the power of anger must be harnessed at will so that its forcefulness can be used in the right places- I should offend to punish and right one, but never simply to hurt for satisfaction. Hint: the satisfaction never comes.
That June, I met someone who taught me to take a step back and analyze everything and to think on all those clichés, truths so obvious that they become neglected but really antiquated poetic devices with clear meanings. These conflicts happened occasionally, as I can safely suspect of other households with innocent children. This new knowledge truncated the light conflict on my end, and so I grew up and matured.
I’m not so sure about my brother, but let’s not go there.
I have lost hope lots of time in my life because I'm not very good at staying positive and happy. But, the most significant time I lost hope was when my grandpa died. I was nine years old and I knew he was sick but I didn't think he would die. My mom had gone down to New Jersey to visit him and my grandma and I was at home with my dad and my two brothers. The phone rang and it was my mom and she couldn't even talk so I gave the phone to my dad. My brothers immediately came over to me and hugged me as my dad walked away so we couldn't hear him. When he came back he told us that my grandpa had died about fifteen minutes ago while he was holding my mom's hand. I had never heard my house so silent. No one said anything for at least an hour and all I did was cry. It wasn't so much that I had lost hope in myself or the people around me but it was more that I had lost hope that my mom would ever be the same. She had always been the person I could rely on and she always seemed so strong but now she couldn't even speak. I lost hope that my life would ever be the same, and it really hasn't. There's always that empty part of my life that I can never get back and it sucks because I can't remember that much of the wonderful times I spent with my grandpa. All of the other times I lost hope were just not as significant and meaningful as this time because none of them meant anything except this.
ReplyDeleteGiving into despair is sometimes difficult to admit but at the same time is an emotion everyone feels at some point. Recently, the Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs after being defeated by the Miami Heat. It was extremely difficult to watch the old and injury stricken team battle night after night in a futile effort. It was excruciating seeing a hopeless Rajon Rondo attempting to play with practically one arm and to see the Big 3 appear too old and too slow to contend with the athletic and young Mimi Heat. Night after night the Celtics gaining a lead and seeing it slowly and painfully slip away. To make matters worse; I watched knowing this was most likely the Celtics last chance to regain their position at the top of the NBA. The worst part being the man taking away from the Celtics championship being, my most hated athlete, LeBron James. Seeing LeBron celebrate at the end of the serious made me hate that arrogant and overrated player even more. I thought it was unfair for LeBron to play with D Wade and Chris Breezy and I find any of LeBron’s championships undeserved and intolerable. Being a fan of Boston sports it was painful watching the fans of Miami celebrate our defeat the same way we had celebrated in previous years. As a fan of Boston sports I have come accustomed to and expect championships due to the tremendous success of the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots. I have been a fan my entire life including the time prior to the Big 3 and I remember the 18 game losing streak of the Celtics and realizing we may be approaching a similar point is hard. With the looming retirement of the Big 3 I remain optimistic although the upcoming seasons are most likely to be filled with despair similarly to what I feel now. Now to cure this despair I must turn to the Bruins in hope of a Stanley Cup.
ReplyDeleteI have experienced despair in a number of different ways, but one source of despair that always seems to occur more often would be the despair related to sports. Watching my favorite sports teams like The Bruins and Celtics can get pretty intense at times. When they lose big games the despair felt is almost too much, but playing and watching are truly two different things. This year my Midget II team for hockey made it to the state playoffs, and each game brought on new struggles we, as a team, would have to overcome. We ended up making it all the way to the semifinals and played against Hingham. We started off the game strong but fell behind going into the third. When the time winded down to a couple minutes left, my team and I started to get worried. At that point I was disappointed in our team and even myself, and instead of digging deep and trying to score, I gave up and gave in to despair. I was mad at myself for giving up and if I could ever go back in time I know I would’ve tried harder and I wouldn’t have stopped believing we could win. Following the game I was obviously upset, but the lesson I learned from this experience was no matter what try is always better than not trying at all.
ReplyDeleteThree years ago, in the 7th grade, my friend started getting a harsh pain in the bone of her finger. After months of toughing it out, the pain began to get unbearable. He doctor told her she had a tumor and had to be referred to a hospital to remove it. We all hoped everything was ok, and that it was a benign tumor, and nothing had gone particularly wrong. When test results from the hospital came back, we were shocked. Her doctor had said it was potentially cancerous. The first thing they were going to do was get the tumor out. Then they would test for a cancer. After the operation, we waited weeks, but those weeks seemed forever. We all thought we were going to lose our friend to cancer. Fortunately, however, the hospital said they got the tumor out before it could turn into anything harmful. So for a year, she was safe. Until she got another one in her foot. Everyone was right back to feeling as scared as before. We couldn't lose her. This one was only slightly more harmful, it caused her more pain, but still wasn't cancerous. Though it wasn't complete and utter despair, it was the closest I got to feeling hopeless. That nothing I could do would make her pain go away. Fortunately for all of us, we didnt have to do anything. She was fine.
ReplyDeleteLast Thanksgiving the family got together the whole Musto Family got together and we all shared laughs and good times. it is normally hard to get us all together in one room because everyone is always either too far away, busy or sick. Everything seemed to be going great and everyone seemed to be happy. Thanksgiving at the Musto household was a success. Until my family got the news about my uncle. My uncle Jimmy lives in Colorado, so he could not make it to the family dinner for Thanksgiving. My Dad got the news that on Thanksgiving day, his brother Jimmy, had died from a drug overdose. I had never had an uncle die and even though I was not able to be as close to him as I wanted to because he lived far away, hearing that he had died was heart breaking. The hardest part of his death was seeing my grandmother and dad so upset. I had never seen either of them cry and it was so hard to see that. My first time going to a wake was when Jimmy died, and I hope that I do not have to go to another one anytime soon. Hearing my dad's old memories as he stood up and talked about his only brother at his wake was horrific. MY dad remembered the first time that he threw a baseball with Jimmy. It was the saddest day ever. And I never thought it was going to get better and I did not think my dad or grandmother were ever going to smile again. But all it took was time. Overtime, everyone realized that death was natural, and no matter how sad it is, you have to deal with it. So that is exactly what everyone did. We dealed with it.
ReplyDeleteWhen a person gives in to despair it’s a very difficult time for them. I have given in to despair a few times but only one that I really remember. I gave in to despair two years ago when I thought everything in my life was bad. My best friend had recently left me and my family was not in a good place. When you give in to despair it feels really bad. I was sad all the time and I had little will to do anything. There are not many ways to get over despair. One good way is to take long walks and listen to music. During the period of time that I completely gave in to despair it took a lot of effort to think of positives in my life. My friend who I had thought was the one person I could always count on had insulted me and told me to never talk to her again. She made me feel horrible about myself and I completely lost hope and faith in everyone I knew for a while. To this day a good part of the reason I have major trust issues is because of her although not completely. In order to prevent myself from giving in to despair again I have to work on staying strong every day. Giving in to despair is one of the worst feelings a person will ever feel. The person that drove me to give in to despair really hurt me and I haven’t been quite the same since. I felt like a turtle that wanted to permanently hide in its shell. I lost all belief in myself during that time and it took a long time to even begin getting it back. My other friends helped a lot along with other people and I learned the best way to get over giving in to despair is to lean on the people who are and always will be there for you until you are strong enough to stand on your own again.
ReplyDeleteBefore I was even born, my grandmother smoked cigarettes. She smoked throughout my mom's childhood up until my brother and I were born. My mom told her that she was not allowed to see us if she smoked. Luckily, my grandmother quit smoking for good. She was very healthy up until when I was in the first grade. She was admitted to the hospital due to chest pain. The doctors diagnosed her with lung cancer. She had smoked for over 30 years straight without any previous health complications. My family was shocked and we all became very worried. She had multiple surgeries to remove the cancer. Once removed, she continued her normal life for the most part. A few years later, when I was in 5th grade, she became severely ill. Her condition worsened with time and became admitted to the hospital again. The cancer was back, but this time had spread throughout her body. She underwent many long treatment of chemotherapy and radiation. Her health was not improving. We started losing hope that she might not make it. For a year, she was in critical condition. At the beginning of 6th grade, she passed away. Our hope had deteriorated to nothing. My family was heartbroken. Friends and family kept up going. Perhaps our lack of hope caused her to die? We were down to nothing. The doctors said chemo and radiation was no hope anymore. She was not going to survive. We lost it right there at that moment. We tried and tried again to keep the hope alive, but it died out. Her spirit still lives on as she continues to bring us hope everyday.
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