I believe in equality. I believe in freedom. I believe in the cheesiness love. I even believe that the smallest acts of kindness can bring change to this ever growing cruel world. But first and foremost I believe in hope even when things seem bleak, having a glimmer of it will help you through anything. Hope is like that small ray of sunshine on a rainy day, it keeps a small part of you warm and content knowing that those hard times will get better even when the rest of you is screaming they’ll get worse.

Thousands of refugees and immigrants come to the United States with hope that their life will be better than it was in their home countries. Most of them struggle immediately both financially and mentally but still they retain some hope that those bad times will pass and that they will live a better life then after some time of waiting they do. Take my friend and her family; she had told me they had gone through something similar to that. When she and her family came to Kauai from the Philippines, they struggled with having enough money to survive, and were even close to being homeless till her dad had gotten a job and they started getting money back. They were finally able to live a better life and from then on things had only gotten better for them. She told me “I had never lost hope that things would get better. When I was younger I was like that and still to this day I still have hope that bad things will turn out good.”

Hope is something that got me through the many problems and traumatic events I had gone through in my 17 year life span from when my own stepdad, the man I had trusted, called me out and made fun of me for gaining weight when I was 9 or 10, which caused me to start hating myself and wishing that I was dead. Then there's my mom who had abandoned me completely after she had cheated on my step dad and moved in with her then younger boyfriend she thought she loved as some sort of midlife crisis. Lastly, my own dad had heavily cussed me out then promptly kicked me out of his house on Father’s Day for taking a ride with my grandma. Through all the tears, pain, and complete sadness I never thought I'd be able to get through any of it; I had hated myself even more and felt more unloved than ever. But one day my grandma had noticed how depressed I had gotten, and she came up to me and gave me a big hug then she let me cry on her shoulder, “My life is will never get better,” I sobbed then she sighed and held me at arm's length and said “Yes it will, you just have to have hope that this, what happened, is just temporary and it will get better.”

After a while on contemplating I had decided to take her advice and gathered up the small shred of hope that I had left and used that to get me through that painful time hoping that things will get better. Soon after, what had happened seemed like a distant memory. I finally had learned to love myself the way I am and that my body image isn't everything which I still admittedly struggle with today but I know those scars will heal with time, though the relationship with my step dad never changed. I gradually started talking to my mom again after she started reaching out to me more and more often which took me by surprise but a good one at that. Soon after my dad had made an effort to try and win back my trust after what he had done to me. I was very hesitant at first but he managed to gain my trust and I ultimately forgave him.

Having hope had gotten me through that tough time even though things had seemed like it wouldn't get any better. The power of hope can get you through anything if you let it, even if it's the smallest increment of it, it will help. But why do people lose hope after bad things happen? I ask myself all the time and the answer is simple, they lose hope because they feel like there's nothing left to hope for but they’re wrong, no matter what happened and how horrible those circumstances may be there's always something to hope for. Bad circumstances and events are just temporary and they’ll pass, becoming something you can look back at with pride and remember that you got through it with hope. I realize I sound like a mother trying to convince her child to love themselves but being hopeful isn’t so bad. After all, hope is what got me through my rough times and I’m sure it can get you through yours as well.