Not long ago I was reminded of Emily Dickenson’s poem “Hope is The Thing With Feathers,” which I’ve reproduced for you below. That, in turn, inspired an image that I’ve also reproduced for you below. In the area of positive thinking, what can be more realistically positive than hope in the midst of negative circumstances? It doesn’t ask you to deny the actuality of the circumstances; it merely encourages you to get through them with an eye to the possibilities of something better in the meantime and afterward.
Hope Is The Thing With Feathers
by Emily Dickenson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.