The movie, “All is Lost,” starring Robert Redford, is about an experienced sailor who undergoes one mishap after another on a transoceanic journey. His sail is broken in a bad storm, his boat is taking on water and sinking, his life raft catches on fire when he sends up a distress flare and, ultimately, he ends up alone in the middle of the ocean treading water.
He is suffering from hypothermia and is getting weaker until he can no longer keep his head above water. The last thing we see as he sinks is his hand.
Just at that moment we see a hand reach out to grab his. The signal flare he sent up alerted another ship and they came to his rescue. He is pulled to safety in the last seconds of the film.
There is a saying that when all hope is gone, hope anyway. Seamus Heaney says, “Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.”
Life is sustained and enriched by hope because we leave the door open for possibility.
Albert Einstein says, “It is better to believe than to disbelieve, for in believing we bring everything into the realm of possibility.”
Maintaining hope is not delusional; it is an attitude of the mind. We can be aware of reality but still hold out the possibility of hope.
Our attitudes and beliefs make all things a possibility. As Norman Vincent Peale says, “Have great hopes and dare to believe in them.”
Even if “all is lost,” hold up your hand and hope.
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