Hope Is Not a Strategy

My paternal grandfather, Joseph Colclough¹, who would have been 100 years old just a few days ago, was a Depression era child. He fought in World War II, stationed on the U.S.S. Caravan — a minesweeper. (Not many jobs more dangerous than that.)

He was often quite grumpy, he smoked a lot, and drank occasionally (though I never remember him getting drunk). Even after a major heart attack and triple bypass, he would often sneak out behind the hedge in their backyard for a quick drag. Doctors say that’s what ultimately killed him.

With that glowing introduction, you might think that I harbored some difficult feelings toward my grandpa. Truth is, I adored him and considered him one of my best friends and heroes until he died. (Just to clarify, he is still one of my heroes.)

I don’t know many people who worked harder than my grandpa. When he returned from the war, he didn’t hope the government or anyone else to take care of him. He immediately completed his education in drafting and went to work for EIMCO Steel. Notably, when EIMCO purchased their first computer, it became my grandpa’s job to double check the computer to make sure it wasn’t making any mistakes. Several years later he took a second job at the Utah Technical College as an instructor and was recognized for his extraordinary efforts by the governor.

When I entered engineering school many years later, Grandpa Joe told me, “never trust a computer to do anything for you until you know how to do it yourself.”

It’s still sound advice. As advanced as computers are, garbage in still equals garbage out.

Grandpa Joe didn’t hang his hat on hope, but he had plenty of it. He always hoped he would be able to provide a comfortable living for his family (which he did). When my mother got sick, my grandparents redoubled their efforts to make sure we were provided for even as medical bills piled up for my parents. He coupled hope and hard work to build a life with my grandmother and, in the process, he left an enduring legacy with his children and grandchildren.

My grandpa’s hard work raises an important question:

Why hope at all if you have to work so hard to attain the thing you hope for?

I’m reminded of that old saying that “wishing won’t make it so”.

Hard work and hope are often inextricably connected. Those diagnosed with severe disease have a better chance of full recovery if they both hope for it and work toward it. An ever-increasing body of knowledge is available for free and is easily accessible on the internet but you can’t just hope to gain knowledge. You have to study and internalize it before it becomes useful.

If work is the ship you sail then hope is the fuel that powers the engine. Particularly when things get difficult, you won’t get very far without hope. When you have a plan, and that plan goes sideways, hope can propel you through the difficulty.

When a situation becomes desperate enough, sometimes all you have is hope; hope to keep going even though you can’t see a way through. In those circumstances, it’s fair to argue that hope is the strategy. It’s hope against hope that things will work out.

Sometimes they do.

Sometimes they don’t.

Whatever the circumstance — good or bad — hope is a beacon. So, while it may not be a strategy, having hope plays a huge role in persevering.

¹Colclough (pronounced co cluff) is an early Anglo-Saxon compound word literally meaning dweller by the cold ravine.