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| Wednesday, November 5, 2008 |
| A Good Thing |
I've never been good at picking favorites. I don't have a favorite food, favorite color, favorite musician, or favorite book. I like so many things it's hard to choose. But I do have a favorite movie - Shawshank Redemption - I even remember the first time I watched it, it was at my friend Ian's house in probably 7th or 8th grade, and I've probably watched it on TNT every time it's been on since then.
I like the movie for a few reasons. For starters I can watch it over and over again and never get bored with it. But even more than that, I love the reoccurring theme of the movie - hope.
The beginning of the movie introduces Red, a man in his 50's who has been in jail since 19, when he was "a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime." He made a mistake, as all of us have, and he's paid for that mistake with all he has, and then some. He's been turned down for a second chance so many times he's lost hope of ever getting out.
"Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane."
I think a lot of people are scared of hope, scared if they hope then they will be let down. That hoping for something is just one more way to be disappointed. Because, in different ways, we've all been let down in the past - some of us more than others - and each time it kills a little bit of us inside until you're so jaded that hope just seems like a silly word on a billboard.
But I for one refuse to give up hope. I will be let down in the future, without a doubt. I'll hope in something that won't come to pass, and I'll have been wrong. It may even be something that I have hope in right now. But I won't give up because without hope what do we have? If you can't hope for a better tomorrow then it won't be.
Andy later writes in a letter to Red that "hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."
I hope that my hope never dies. I hope for a better tomorrow. I hope for the best for my friends and my family. I hope that my childrens' generation lives in world that's better than the one I live in. I hope that their lives are blessed, as impossible as it may seem, more than mine has been.
"I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope."
It's possible I could have gotten this one wrong, maybe I picked the wrong guy, maybe I'll look back and realize I should have chosen differently. But I have hope, and I'll never regret the decision I made based on this hope.
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posted by Brian @ 9:00 AM  |
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Is that you jumping?