September 5th, 2021
“It’s the hope that kills you.”
It’s a sentiment shared by every Minnesota sports fan and an ironic motto in the show Ted Lasso.
Oh, you haven’t seen Ted Lasso? Let me join the mob of fans telling you to watch it now. It’s a show about two kinds of football, sure, but it’s really a show about positivity in all its shapes, forms like connection, support, honesty, and hope.
It resonates with me in a really special way, because it embodies all of the things that I write about now, and everything I want to be as a human being and regularly fall short of.
Be curious, not judgemental. It’s another phrase that comes up in the series that’s been around for a long time, but not a lot of people pay attention to. And it’s something I’ve learned and held dearly over the past four years. It lets me see people, even people I don’t like, as more than their outsides.
And that kind of perspective allows people to grow.
I think it’s funny that many of the posts that I’ve written that I’m proudest of tend to be the ones that receive the littlest attention, going by internet react and share measurements.
But that doesn’t matter.
Because in my head, I dream that someone comes across one on their hardest day, and that post, which I put my whole heart into in the moment, gives them something they need. Whether it’s just another person who relates, or the hope they thought they lost.
Ted Lasso believes — in positivity, but not the false or toxic kind. Positivity and hope do not always get you the things you want. Be positive and hopeful regardless. Be kind.
Which is the ironic part of “it’s the hope that kills you.”
Hope doesn’t kill us.
It’s the only thing keeping us alive.
The Den 