sloth's lover

While it is not wrong to hope (we all do, from time to time), it is something that needs to be managed. The romantic notions of impossible dreams, true love and happily ever after all contribute to the ultimate cruelty of hope. Nothing stops anyone from dreaming big, from wanting something (or someone) so terribly, from wishing that all of existence's underpinnings were based on Barney's "I love you, you love me" song. But my problem with majority of these people is that hoping is all they ever do.

They want to write but do not make time, citing the impossibilies inherent in their schedules and the minutae of their daily lives (you cannot write until you make time to write, by prioritizing what is important to you).

They want accolades but are paralyzed by the fear of failure, creating in their minds tiresome circles of analyses (when learning to walk, you will fall; when performing in front of an audience you can screw up - that's how things are).

They want a bigger salary, a better job, a larger home, a better car, to be thinner, to leave an abusive relationship, to have a successful business, to have someone who loves them for who they are - but they do not act. Instead, they stay where they are, their posteriors lovingly caressing the same familiar indentations of their favorite chair or bed, and hope.

There is comfort in hope because it demands no action. It is a palliative for the passive, sloth's lover. Hope holds you in her arms and coos in your ear, promising everything, promising nothing. It is insubstantial and destructive alone, without action, without motion. In solitude, it pretends to spin in pretty circles and is wonderful to behold, sometimes elegant and sometimes wild in its illusory gyrations, psuedo-oscillating in the sweetness of its imagined context.

It is beautiful, yes.

But if all you want to do is watch, I'll leave you to your marvelous visions and miraculous tomorrows - I have things I need to do today.