Sighing is a sign of delayed hope
“Fluffy! Come! Sit!” ordered the boy sternly as he firmly pointed at the carpeted floor directly in front of him. But his bright-eyed puppy merely stared blankly at him while panting. And within a blink of an eye, it had already bolted away.
Even though his puppy was always a bundle of joy and affection, it was also a source of deep frustration and anxiety as well. For no matter how loudly the boy yelled, nor how many times he locked his dog up in his cage, his furry little friend would never seem to listen to any command.
Until one day, Fluffy was found lying lifelessly on the side of the road. The ball it was just chasing was still rolling away. It was just hit by a passing pick-up truck.
As the boy frantically ran towards the motionless corpse, he kept angrily screaming, “Fluffy! I kept calling you to come back. You never listen! It is your fault this has happened!”
But the boy was wrong. For while the veterinarian was doing a final examination of the dog before its cremation, she discovered something quite interesting. The dog was actually born deaf.
Many of us suffer from long bouts of delayed hope. We spend so much of our lives wishing and waiting for things that may never actually happen. The longer we wait, the more anger and frustration we tend to feel. Instead of judging and punishing those who constantly disappoint us, what if spent more time listening and understanding their side of the story? For hope is only healthy when it stays in touch with reality.
