Opinion: When hope is a beautifully wrapped torment

When hope is a beautifully wrapped torment (Photo: iStock)

Hope is the cruellest thing in the world. Death is better. When you are dead, the pain stops. But hope keeps raising your way high, only to drop you to the hard ground. Hope cradles your heart in its hand and then it crashes you with a fist. Over and over. It never stops. That’s what hope does.”

The very quote above is the very reason I do not read motivational books because clever quotes are what you are likely to come across, unprovoked, except they provoke you and you immediately start looking at life like this big bad beast that you need to protect yourself from.

Granted, the above quote is not from a motivational book because do not read them. What hurts is that it is from one of my favourite fiction authors, Allan Coben who must have been going through a heartbreak when he wrote that. That it is not from one of those books that should be on the list of ‘banning’ does not mean I do not know what content they have, the very content I avoid.

Hope, something that makes life go round, something that becomes the reason to live for a person at the brink of madness, is instantly turned into a statement that is designed to obliterate the reason to love, just by twisting words in a clever way. Sometimes, cleverness is harmful. Often, the complete truth is hazardous.

Emotional blackmail

A friend of mine, someone I am re-evaluating our friendship, is the inspiration behind this topic. Why? See, my friend claims that he is a reader.

He reads so many books that he does not even have time for social media, which makes the rest of us feel significantly small and extra idle.

He claims he is a reader. I insist he is not. Readers are people who read fiction or biographies - works meant to entertain and inspire, not scare you by emotionally blackmailing you. Books are meant to heal, not add to the daily struggle of trying to work out what is wrong.

Readers read fiction, especially if it’s their friend’s fiction. I don’t care what you say, or think, but I refuse to recognise people who exclusively read motivational books as readers. I mean, how much does one single person need to be motivated? People who read one motivational book after another as they watch their friends struggle to sell their own books.

In short, I am jealous of my friend’s bookshelf, because it is beautiful and full. I just hate that.

I may be jealous, but I am concerned, not by his bookshelf and its content, but by the fact that he us still generally a very uninspired person.

He hates his job but will report everyday, and may I add that he does not actively look for his job. He hates his wife but he has lived with her for years and procreated with her. He hates Nyama Choma but guess who called asking for a choma date?

When I think hard about it, I conclude that perhaps he is a much better human being after reading all those books, that perhaps, if he had not read all those books, he would be a nasty piece of work. But, how can he constantly ignore that I have authored four books? How can he ignore the pomp and colour that comes with it?

Maybe, just maybe, my friend reads motivational books not to be inspired, but to survive. Maybe he needs those neatly packaged words of wisdom, not as a ladder to climb higher, but as a crutch to keep standing. Maybe he is drowning, and those books are the only thing keeping him afloat—empty lifeboats that never really reach the shore.

And that is the tragedy of motivation. It promises light at the end of the tunnel but never tells you how long the tunnel is. It whispers about success, resilience, and destiny but conveniently forgets to mention the price. It offers hope, but, hope is sometimes just a beautifully wrapped torment.