Hope of Victory

Today, my family and I watched the The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In the middle movie, The Two Towers, an army faces near-certain destruction, yet the leader of that army insists on maintaining hope. My family and I discussed this briefly, and someone said that you have to have hope for victory in order to fight to win.

I've seen this in my own life as well. Naturally, it has applied to my personal struggles, but it also applied this morning, while I was playing disc golf. As long as I tried to play my best, in hopes that I would do fairly well, I did well enough. But when I determined that I was only going to do "okay," I lost confidence, and I started to do pretty poorly. At least, that's the way I perceived it. Another observer may disagree.

Ultimately, hope for victory is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When one has hope that they can succeed, they usually exercise the confidence and determination that it takes to succeed. Conversely, if one expects to fail, they're unlikely to put in the effort needed to succeed.

There's a saying that goes "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right," and while I don't think that this saying is true in all cases, I believe that there is some element of truth to it. Hope, faith, and confidence are important. Without them, defeat is almost guaranteed.

Hope isn't enough to ensure success, but you need to have a hope for victory in order to have any hope of victory.