Once, a friend of mine said, ‘A big sign of hope is to set your alarm for the next morning…’ and he smiled at me. I kept reflecting on the simplicity of that phrase and how true it was. Many times, we don’t realize that this act (and others as simple as this one) is what we call hope. We always hope for the next day, the next morning, the next hours—hoping to see the sun shine in the sky, meet our friends, and listen to the little birds chirping around.

Hope keeps us alive and helps us navigate our lives. Everything can be a mess, the world can be unfair in many ways, and relating to other people can be a challenge. But at the end of the road, our hope lives, lighting the way and making us believe we can face and want another day. We can believe in our hope for so many days that, in the end, it becomes an entire life.

The light that guides our hopes can be as simple as a candle. I think the most important thing here is not the kind of light you have, but what you want to see with it, what you are looking for with your hope. So, what are you looking for with your hope? What keeps you breathing?

About the drawing

Pina is this little girl with dark, fuzzy hair… One night she wondered if that little candle could help her see further and have hope in something. ‘What am I hoping for? What do I value the most?’ Those thoughts were very deep and hard to find a simple answer…

‘Well, I do not know everything at all… I will have to live and find out little pieces here and there, but this little light now shows me an Elephant, a Cactus, and a Dog. Definitely, I have a long journey, but I’m not alone. This must be an important piece in this puzzle,’ Pina thought.