I was curious about the last part of our assignment: how self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope relate.
I just did a quick google search for "hope", 497 million search results later . . .
It kind of goes without saying that hope is an important thing to us. We almost need it to survive. There were links to definitions, support groups, poems, quotes, and lyrics. But why is it so important to us? It's because hope is a huge motivator for us.
According to Oscar Wilde, "What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe thinks "In all things it is better to hope than to despair."
And George Weinberg said "Hope never abandons you; you abandon it."
Throughout history, people have been plagued with low self-efficacy. At some point in time, we're all plagued with insecurities, doubts, and fear. Hope is what pulls us through it.
In my personal experience, hope is used as a constant. Something to trust and believe in. When I need it, it's there. And though it, I'm able to find the reassurance and beliefe that I can perceiver and that I am in control.
Hope helps me change my efficacy and mastery beliefs and allows me to overcome "impossible" odds.
Is this how you use hope? Can you find a place in your life that you constantly rely upon hope because you are not able to fully over come your doubts?
This blog actually does hit home for me right now. I've been waiting to hear back from grad schools FOREVER and at this point, hope is all I have. My self-efficacy really has been drained after being on waiting list after waiting list and now I'm down to the one school I really want and I don't know if I will get it. If I don't, I'm not sure what will happen to my self-efficacy at that point. I know that my perceptions of control have been greatly altered. This might sound like I'm bragging, but I really have not had to work that hard at school and I really want the responsibility of grad school. However, the fact that there are people out there that decide my fate with me having no control over the situation is very hard for me. I have never felt this out of control in my life, because whenever something doesn't go right I figure out a way to fix it. In this case, I can't just fix it, all I can do is wait to hear from them and if I don't get in just apply again next year I suppose. I guess what you could say is that my hope has been drained from this process. If they're trying to wean people out they do a good job torturing their applicants. I think that hope is something the fluctuates over time. I think that it is something that is there when you really need it and probably not something that you think about so much when things are going well.
I recently re-read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. I've read this book at least twice before, but I needed to put my life back into perspective. I knew that Anne's observations and outlook (in spite of her circumstances) would be great reminders to me to seek out and focus on the positives! She really was an amazing girl! To live in hiding (or face certain death) from the ages of 13-15 -- never to be able to go outside and only to interact with a select few people -- and yet always have so much HOPE in her heart that everything would turn out for good in the end is absolutely incredible to me. It makes me view my own struggles in a different way -- not that they aren't significant in my own life, but that if this teenage girl enduring the holocaust could still find so much about life that is positive, then so can I!
A few of my favorite quotes from the book are,
"I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway. I'll just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end." (February 3, 1944)
"'As long as this exists,' I thought, 'This sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?' The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity. As long as this exists, and that should be forever, I know what there will be solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances. I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer." (February 23, 1944) [And she says this from the attic window that they are only allowed to open a crack at certain times of the day! She couldn't even go outside, yet was appreciative of the little fresh air and view of nature she could get from that little window! Amazing!]
"At such moments I don't think about all the misery, but about the beauty that still remains... Beauty remains even in misfortune. If you just look for it you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance. A person who's happy will make others happy; a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery!" (March 7, 1944)
"I've asked myself again and again whether it wouldn't have been better if we hadn't gone into hiding, if we were dead now and didn't have to go through this misery, especially so that the others could be spared the burden. But we all shrink from this thought. We still love life, we haven't yet forgotten the voice of nature, and we keep hoping, hoping for...everything." (May 26, 1944)
"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart." (July 15, 1944)
"And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them!" (July 15, 1944)
Anne and the rest of her family were discovered and arrested on August 4th. Anne died of Typhus at the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in late February or early March -- six weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops. I wonder what she would have written in her diary during the 6 months she spent in the concentration camps. Somehow, I feel I can believe that she remained positive throughout it all, and had even a sliver of hope to the very end.