“Remember hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

- Stephen King

Dear Readers,

Just a few days ago I watched one of my best friends move out of his childhood home, putting an end to an important and detrimental part of his past. I watched as he walked through the door again, touching walls and dressers like artifacts from millenniums ago, interjecting a personal story that gave a simple object like a door, an entirely new meaning. He took with him only a handful of pictures and a dresser he could use for the most practical sense—there was no scramble to collect every defining object—there was no urgency to gather up the door knobs and collect every nail in an effort to save his house—there was no push or struggle to lament the past and grab onto it one last time. In losing his house, my best friend opened my eyes to the things we tend to lose in the midst of our day: selfless kindness and adoration for the non-material aspects of our lives.

Most of us spend our days consumed with concepts of money, materials, and personal gains. We’re obsessed with owning luxurious cars and mansions because of the selfish focus on ourselves. We fight to push others out of the way because we’re taught at a young age the reality of the statement: “nice guys finish last.” We allow the dilemma of our phone dying or our laptop crashing to parallel a tragic loss of a loved one. But when I watched my best friend accept the greatest blow of losing his physical home to the greedy hands of a bank, I learned an important lesson in appreciation. I spend more time worrying about the grade on a test and the haunting fear of graduation than I do on calling my parents once a day or telling people how much they mean to me. I obsess over the smallest of problems that I often lose sight of the important things in life; the greatest fault any human being has is forgetting how lucky they are to be alive.

When I asked him if he was sad, my friend replied with a simple: “Of course, but there’s nothing I can do to prevent it.” He asked for no pity or sympathy because he understands that playing the role of the martyr doesn’t change the hands we are dealt in this life—to accept the fact that life is unfair and channel positivity despite that knowledge is how we achieve true success. In the face of constant tragedy, he’ll never ask the question: “Why Me?” but will rather counter it with “Why Not Me?” Life doesn’t play favorites—it has no mercy or sympathy for those that struggle but pushes and tries the wounded so they can become the strongest.

As we turned to leave I watched my friend struggle to dismantle the hinges of a simple door to a bedroom. He fought to meticulously yank the screws from their place before giving it a glance of goodbye and heading out the door. When I asked him why he wanted the door so badly he told me the day after his mom died he discovered someone had carved the word “hope” on the door. To this day he still doesn’t know who carved those words, but that wasn’t the point—hope can be found even in the simplest of places given to us by mysterious strangers. It’s very easy for us to give up when we lose a parent or our own house, but we hold onto the little hope that’s carved into us.

Next time you fail a test or crack your phone realize that there are people struggling every day that refuse to pity themselves or their situation. Those people are usually the ones smiling the hardest or entertaining a crowd through stories, laughter, or music because they know that to conquer life’s constant beatings we must always find the hope for happiness.