Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: “expect with confidence” and “to cherish a desire with anticipation.”
From Middle English hope, from Old English hopa (“hope, expectation”), from Proto-Germanic*hupô, *hupǭ, *hupō (“hope”), from Proto-Germanic*hupōną (“to hope”), from Proto-Indo-European*kēwp-, *kwēp- (“to smoke, boil”). Cognate with West Frisian hope (“hope”), Dutch hoop (“hope”), Middle High German hoffe (“hope”). Extra-Germanic cognates include Latin cupio (“I desire, crave”) and possibly Latin vapor (“vapor; smoke”).
hope (countable and uncountable, plural hopes)
- (countable or uncountable) The belief or expectation that something wished for can or will happen.
I still have some hope that I can get to work on time.After losing my job, there’s no hope of being able to afford my world cruise.There is still hope that we can find our missing cat. (countable) The actual thing wished for. (countable) A person or thing that is a source of hope. We still have one hope left: my roommate might see the note I left on the table. (Christianity, uncountable) The virtuous desire for future good.
Hope and forgiveness can impact several aspects of life such as health, work, education, and personal meaning. There are three main things that make up hopeful thinking:
- Goals – Approaching life in a goal-oriented way.
- Pathways – Finding different ways to achieve your goals.
- Agency – Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals.
In other words, hope was defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.
Hope is the second round in the theological and Masonic ladder, and symbolic of a hope in immortality. It is appropriately placed there, for, having attained the first, or faith in God, we are led by a belief in His wisdom and goodness to the hope of immortality. This is but a reasonable expectation; without it, virtue would lose its necessary stimulus and vice its salutary fear; life would be devoid of joy, and the grave but a scene of desolation. The ancients represented Hope by a nymph or maiden holding in her hand a bouquet of opening flowers, indicative of the coming fruit; but in modern and Masonic iconology, the science of Craft illustrations and likenesses, it is represented by a virgin leaning on an anchor, the anchor itself being a symbol of hope .
Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry