quotes and sayings on pride, an obstacle to living life fully

The word "despair" originates from the Latin verb "dēspērāre"
which means "to be without hope." The word is formed from
the prefix "de-" (meaning "without") and the verb "sperare"
(meaning "to hope") which itself comes from "spes" meaning "hope."

Despair is an insidious beast. It's a feeling that creeps up on us after hope turns to hopelessness, and when we start feeling that nothing is going to turn out right any more, or be good and positive any more, or even stop being bad. I've felt despair mostly when I've gone through depression--the despair that I felt was that nothing was going to get better, ever, and that I was doomed to be lonely and depressed forever.

When we have difficult times in our lives, hope is one of the things that keep us going. We can hope for change or improvement, for tomorrow to be better than today. Hope allows us to see that "this, too, shall pass," and that eventually we'll be feeling better and seeing life in much more positive ways.

When we lose that hope, though, despair has taken over. And logic isn't very helpful, because our logical minds start to tell us, "If things aren't going to ever get any better, then what's the point in going on?" After all, what is life worth if we never have brightness or happiness or cheerfulness to look forward to again, or if we're doomed to being alone and struggling? That's what our logical minds tell us, and it's easy for us to see the logic in the argument when we are temporarily incapable of feeling any hope. When despair is in charge, life is a series of challenge that simply can't be met, of setbacks from which we can't recover.

Personally, I consider myself quite fortunate that while the depression was very strong, the despair never completely took hold. I don't know why things happened that way, but I don't know if I would still be around if the despair had been stronger. Somehow, I was always able to hold on to a shred of hope, even in the worst of times. And because of that, I was able to hold on and eventually find out that the hope was justified, that things did change, that I was able to make my way out of the darkness of depression.

I can understand, though, just how desperate people can feel when they lose all hope. If you're feeling horrible today and you have absolutely no hope that tomorrow will be better, or the day after, life becomes overwhelming. I don't believe that anyone actually chooses to lose hope, and it's a terrible thing to have it swept away from you by forces completely out of your control. People who are experiencing despair need our love and our compassion, because pep talks and superficial encouragement may make us feel better, but they're not going to help the person in despair.

One of the more interesting things that I find when reading about despair is that many people who have passed through despair seem to be somewhat harsh when talking about it. Many of them take the "pull yourself out of it and get on with your life" approach to giving advice to the despairing person, and I believe that this happens because when we do despair, there may be an element of choice in it. Do we want to feel awful so that others may feel sorry for us and come to "save" us? Are we so caught up in self-pity that we want to make it as strong as possible so that we can feel even more sorry for ourselves?

Personally, I don't feel qualified to speak to that, though I know that in the back of my mind, such thoughts often were with me when I went through depression. I just wanted help, and if no one would help me when things were fine, then perhaps they might help me if they saw that things were terrible (though such a thing never actually happened). Perhaps these people who seem to be callous and uncaring are actually responding to a part of their own despair that was very real, and that they hope to warn others about (see Merton, Johnson, and Claypool below).

On some hill of despair the bonfire you kindle can light the great sky--
though it's true, of course, to make it burn you have to throw yourself in.

Galway Kinnell

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Every message of despair is the statement of a situation from
which everybody must freely try to find a way out.

Eugene Ionesco

At times of despair, we must learn to see with new eyes.

Desmond Tutu

Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when one
deliberately turns one's back on all help from anyone else in order
to taste the rotten luxury of knowing oneself to be lost.

Thomas Merton

Despair is criminal.

Samuel Johnson

Despair is always presumptuous. How do we know what lies in the Great
Not Yet or how some present "evil" may work itself out as a blessing in disguise?
Be patient before you label any experience or close the door of hope.
Despair is presumption, pure and simple, a going beyond what the facts at hand
should warrant. . . . The worst thing is never the last thing. God is already working
on Plan B as Plan A lies in shambles around our feet.

John R. Claypool
Tracks of a Fellow Struggler

I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in
seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets
without companions, without conversation, face to face with
myself, with only the music of my heart for company.

Henry Miller
Tropic of Cancer

Despair is a sense of hopelessness about a person's entire life and
future. When extreme hopelessness seeps into all the corners of our
lives and combines with extreme sadness, we feel despair. I once
heard theologian Rob Bell define despair as "the belief that tomorrow
will be just like today." When we are in struggle and/or experiencing
pain, despair--that belief that there is no end to what we're experiencing--
is a desperate and claustrophobic feeling. We can't figure a way out of
or through the struggle and the suffering.

Brené Brown
Atlas of the Heart

The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the
road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.

Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Fall of Atlantis

I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error,
so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a
child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink
to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide,
in order to experience grace.

Hermann Hesse
Siddhartha

Does anything in nature despair except humans? An animal with
a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy
trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting.
Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to
lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same
for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.

May Sarton
Journal of a Solitude

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Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness.
Look deeply into life, and you'll always find despair.

Irvin D. Yalom
When Nietzsche Wept

Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek
those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend
your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who
was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful
that you are strong enough to survive it.

J.D. Stroube
Caged by Damnation

This fall I think you're riding for—it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.
The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just
keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who,
at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own
environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own
environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking.
They gave it up before they ever really even got started.

J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye