Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.

Hope turns up in people who have every reason to have lost it. It persists in hospital corridors, in failing businesses, in places torn apart by conflict, often without anyone deciding to feel it. Whether you see it as given or simply as part of how humans are made, it seems to belong to being a person rather than to being lucky.

That means your own hope does not have to be earned or justified before you are allowed it. When it flickers, you are not being naive. You might name one small thing you are still hoping for, and treat it as something worth protecting rather than something to be embarrassed about.