Pen Pen's Evangelion
A Pen Pen for your Thoughts
This section will just be for, basically random thoughts and feelings. Since my thought process is mostly random you can probably expect this to be updated frequently. Back to Previous Pennys. Back to Pen Penny.
Understanding HOPE
I had the distinct pleasure of attending a seminar about “HOPE.” Now, when I saw the word “hope” in all caps, I assumed it was some sort of acronym. Maybe it meant the “Houston Oilers Practice Eternally” in some sort of spirit of a team that shan’t be forgotten. Or it could have meant “Hopping Over Plateaus Easily” in some sort of weird, plateau hopping group… okay, I had no idea what “HOPE” would mean. I was utterly confused about what this would be about, but I had little doubt that it would be stupid and an utter waste of time.
I was hardly wrong in this. Oddly enough, “HOPE” turned out to mean… hope. I’m not sure why they felt the urge to yell the word “hope” in their title, I think a calmly-said “hope” would’ve done just fine and gotten the message across. However, I was not in charge of the HOPE Project, I would rather choose to focus on the Paranormal And Non-Detectable Organic Residue Accumulation BOX project (a little bit of “classical” humor, as we educated types refer to it). Even though the title of the project was HOPE, it actually… didn’t have that much to do with hope either.
Somehow or another, when developing the HOPE Project, they must’ve been distracted, perhaps by a ball of yarn or shiny piece of foil, however it happened the project didn’t end up being about hope (or the Houston Oilers) as one might have suspected. At some point the actual project turned into one about goals. I suppose they couldn’t have done “GOAL” in all caps without being associated with the horribly oppressive and evil sport of soccer (or “football” as savages call it). Yes, it was about goals, but they felt the need to tie this to hope for some misguided reason. Perhaps it was in honor of the fallen Houston Oilers, or maybe it was in some attempt to tie funding given for the specific purpose of “hope research” and they had to do that to keep the money. Or maybe, just maybe, they’re insane.
My money’s on the latter personally, or the Houston Oilers thing. Anyways, they went on to talk about goals and goal-making and bad goals and goals who aren’t good or bad but just grew up in a goal family that didn’t love them. It wasn’t the goal’s fault, it was the fault of the goal-maker that goaled them into the world full of misguided goals, like making a project supposedly to fund “hope” but actually doing it to look into goals. They’ve apparently been studying… “hope” all the way back since the mid-1990s and have made some startling discoveries about hope (goals).
One thing that’s important, don’t have compound goals (hopes). It’s also extremely important to have sub goals (sub hopes). Hopefully (get it?) I don’t have to repeat those in order to get the message across. I was also told to think negatively, and that would improve my hope somehow. Yes, negative thoughts of failure and a life of mediocrity apparently help raise your hopes (goals?). I guess I’m on my way to becoming a great goal/hope type person, because I’m thinking about how much of my time was wasted by the HOPE Project, I guess they accomplished their goal! – 12/5/04
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