Streetlife EXTENSION

If there is anything I’ve never run out of, it's hope. I've run out of gas, run out of air, run out of words to say. But hope, I’ve never run out of and not because I always saw solutions to my problems or found answers to my questions. For in some of the darkest hours of my life, I saw no one except myself and found nothing except pain. If I never run out of hope, it was because I never ran out of options. Sometimes we give up because we feel we've run out of options. But most of the time, the options are all out there; we just don't care to consider them. Sometimes, all it takes is a paradigm shift, a change in perspective, a wider-angle lens to see that there are choices beyond the ones we currently consider.

Sometimes, we fall in love and believe that life is not worth living if the person we love does not return our feelings. But the point of the matter is that love, to be truly called real, does not have to be reciprocated. When we love someone, we enrich our lives with that choice and commitment. If that person chooses not to love us back, it is that person's loss not ours. Our lives become richer when we love and when we are loved. But the people we choose to love may not be the very people who will choose to love us, as well. In the same manner, there are people in our lives who make the choice to love us yet we may choose not to love them. But our lives are still full because we love and we are loved. To love. To be loved. To love and be loved. To be sad. To be happy. To be despondent. To be hopeful. To hold on. To let go. To stop loving. Or to go on loving, no matter what.

The options are out there. Sometimes, goals fall short, things go wrong and plans miscarry. It's not the end of the world. For those who don't believe in failure as an option, then it is the end for them. But for the rest of us who believe that while we live, we have the power to change the course of our lives, hope springs eternal. We can choose to give up. Or we can choose to go on. We can choose to be scared. Or we can choose to be brave. We can choose death. But we can also choose life. we can go for our goals one more time. or we can change our goals over time. We determine our destiny. We can change our goals. We can change our dreams. We can change our feelings. We can wait for the world around us to change or we can start changing the world around us. We can choose to try to change others. Or we can choose to change ourselves. The options are all out there. In some of the darkest hours of my life, I’ve never lost hope. For although my faith in human beings is strong g, my faith in God is stronger. One can choose to go it alone. Or one can choose to submit to a Higher authority.

The options are out there.