HOPE AND FEAR

Cheri Gallegos (Essay for jan.05)

Hope and fear. I, myself, think you need both in order to live your life. I say this because you may have many hopes, but everyone always has that one thing they fear. I have many hopes for myself, but even though I don’t fear many things, there is one thing in my life I couldn’t live without. The only thing I fear in my life is losing my family. I have already lost the majority of my family, but I still have the most important people in my life. These are my four younger brothers and my mother. I don’t know what I would do without them in my life. Though I hope for the best in their future, I fear they will become failures like me.

A lot of people may tell you that they don’t fear anything, not even death. This may be true to an extent, but there will always be one thing that they fear, whether it be loosing their family or dying alone. These people may not realize it now, but before they die they will find their biggest fear. Some people among us have more fears then hope. This is normal, because not everyone has lived the same life. Therefore, everyone has different values.

I think everyone has to have hopes and fears in their life because otherwise you don’t have anything to worry about. If you don’t have anything to worry about then what would life really be like? It is normal in today’s lifestyle to worry a lot. Another reason I think so is because hope cancels out fear. For example, if you are going to a G.E.D program in order to prepare yourself for the G.E.D test, you are always going to fear the official test. Yet you also hope that you will pass. So the hope of passing your test cancels out your fear of the test itself. (Or you “ forget” about the test until you are ready to take it, and the only thing you think about is hoping you will pass.)

I myself will be taking my G.E.D test tomorrow, and for the last two weeks all I’ve thought about is “What if I fail? What if I don’t finish?” Now it is the day before my test, and all I can think about is how well I’ll do. Yes, I may be nervous and excited at the same, but that’s normal for something this big. So in the end I overcame my fear of the test by hoping I will do just fine.

I think life itself comes with both hope and fear, but it’s up to you to decide which one is more important, or which one you worry about the most. Also if you don’t have both hope and fear in your life, how do you survive? I say this because I have noticed that when people have fears, they use hope to keep themselves going. What would life be without hope and fears?