Dad’s Guide To Life: Being Hopeful is Useless

2004. Sixteen years ago. October. It was cold and lonely. The Boston Red Sox American League Championship series was going to be the deciding factor of 2004. Was I going to stand up and fight? Or lay down and give up on my life because a few girls broke up with me? Was I going to give up or move forward because I was feeling bad about quitting my job and not having anything lined up? Was I going to accept that bad stuff happened in life, or just lay in the middle of the road every time something made me feel bad?

The Boston Red Sox were down 0–3 in the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees. I was single for the first time in my adult life. I was alone. I was in between jobs. I was broke. All that kept me clinging to life was hope. I had hope that I would get another job soon. I had hope that I would find the love of my life, if this wasn't the one. I had hope that I would find my way out of darkness. I had hope that someone could help me figure out how long I had to hope before anything good started to happen. Well, the answer was going to come on October 17th, 2004.

I was a bouncer/doorman for a pub in 2004. I watched the Yankees take an early lead in the 3rd, 2–0, then Boston didn’t score in the 4th, I started to worry. Last year we had a real shot, and this year, we’re going to blow it. I had hope we come back and win it all, but no one has ever done that before, so all I could do was hope. Boston scored 3 runs in the 5th, and took the lead. Hope started to grow. Then the next inning, the Yankees scored two more. Making it 4–3 in the top of the 7th. Boston didn’t score anymore in the 7th or 8th. We fought through the Yankees at bats, and made it through, still 4–3 in the bottom of the ninth. Then something pretty crazy happened…Kevin Millar get’s walked. Dave Roberts runs for Millar. On the first pitch to Mueller, Roberts stole second base. Mueller hits a single, and Roberts comes home to tie the game. The bar erupted in chaos! Hope paid off! Suddenly, hope became excitement, and I had forgotten that I was bummed out. The game went into extra innings tied at 4 apiece.

The game stayed tied until the bottom of the 12th inning. Manny Ramirez hits a single to lead off the 12th, then Big Papi steps in, and clobbers a two run walk off homer into right to win the game 6–4! Suddenly, the series was 3–1 Yankees, and anything sad anywhere, was gone for the moment. Everyone was hugging and jumping up and down.

The 2004 Red Sox was a team that didn’t know how to give up. They just played every game as hard as they could. They never looked to the future, or worried about the day before, they just played the game they had today.

Game 5 was more of the same. An extra inning grind, a battle for survival. In the bottom of the fourteenth inning, Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez walked. David Ortiz stepped in to the batting box and fended off none pitches. On the tenth pitch, Ortiz punched a single to bring home Johnny Damon and the Sox won again! 3–2 series lead, Yankees. Again the bar erupted, and for the 2nd night in a row, all my sadness forgotten…and suddenly, I was starting to believe that something magic was going to happen.

The sox went back to NY. Sox came out stong in the 4th with four runs, and the yankees put forth a strong effort, but never caught up. Again, the bar erupts in chaos, cheers, and tears of happiness. The impossible has happened. And I witnessed the magic I had hoped for. I went to bed euphoric. I said to myself “they have a real chance, huh?” Hope was no longer an option. I knew the Red Sox were going to come back and win this thing. They had to. My life depended on it.

In Game 7, all bets were off. Sox struck first 2–0. Johnny Damon hits a grand slam to make it 6–0. Damon again homers later to make it 8–1. NOTHING was going to stop us! Then Bellhorn homers, 9–3 Boston. At 12:01am, october 21st, 2004, the Boston Red Sox win 10–3.

I sank to my knees at the bar. I was on the floor in front the big screen tv, tears streaming down my face. I was surrounded by people, all screaming, crying, laughing, cheering, absolute chaos…Inside me, silence….total calm.

My own voice was whispering to me in that moment,…”anything is possible…” “Have faith…”

Before the week I am speaking of, I bet my life on hope. Always hoping. But hope is a thing that indicates that everything I want, I do not have. I hope for money, maybe it will come, maybe it will not. I hope my team wins, maybe they will, maybe they wont. I hope my life get’s better. Maybe it will, maybe it wont. There is always this lingering moment of doubt within a hopeful person. It’s in that lingering moment of doubt, that hope unravels, and fear creeps in. Hope does not change what is, or what is to come. Hope places into our minds an expectation, and if that expectation is not met, it ruins our day, does it not?

Therefore, one should not hope for anything. There is no reason to do such a thing.

The Boston Red Sox American League Championship series of 2004 ended the part of my life that I relied on hope. In that chaotic moment of internal silence, on my knees, arms in the air, releasing all my emotions out of my tear ducts, I would suddenly just have FAITH. A repetitive mantra of the Boston Red Sox over their championship years.

Hope is useless. Faith changes the game. When you have faith that life will bring you to the desired outcome, you let go of the expectations that are created by hope. You hope tomorrow is a nice day, but then it rains. You are disappointed. You have faith that tomorrow will come and bring with it everything you need to get through the day successfully, suddenly the expectation of a “nice day” are no longer needed, and disappointment is gone. Have faith in the process of life, and your only job becomes living it one moment at a time.

You can hope for riches, or have faith that if you work toward your dreams every day, you will have enough, and find happiness in what you do. You will no longer be disappointing for not being Kanye rich, because you are doing something meaningful, and you are no longer disappointing by the hope that you will make a million dollars this year. You will be happy making strides to get your business going, or whatever you’re working toward.

October of 04 was the best month of my year. The rest of it was full of chaos and turmoil, but without the mindset change and release of all negative emotion, I would have never made it through.

I realized that night, as the Red Sox traveled home to Boston, to get ready for the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, that with hope, everything has two outcomes, success, or disappointment. With faith, there is only one outcome, that anything is possible if you work at it every single day without expectation.

Hope is jumping to conclusions. Faith, is concluding to JUMP. So just jump, and let life get you where you’re going. Have faith, all you gotta do is play one game at a time. Win one game at a time. Live one day at a time. Live one moment at a time. Don’t worry about the process, just let life take you, and do something that you love every day, and it will take you where you want to be eventually.

Hopefully I explained well enough why I think that hope is pointless. Its not a bad thing to hope, its nice to think positively, but I think FAITH is stronger, and since I stopped hoping, and starting Faith-ing, Most moments are good and I get through hard times, just a little easier, knowing that hard times always end, one way or another, all I have to do is wait for the end to present itself, and walk out the door.

With Love,

Dad.