In Greek mythology Zeus king of gods lived on Mount Olympus and men roamed freely there on the Mount and elswhere amongst the gods.Living at that time was a man called Epimetheus and he was the wisest amongst the men for he knew the secrets of life. Epimetheus took the beautiful Pandora as his wife.(Pandora was fashioned from water and clay by the gods and sent down among mortal man to punish them for Prometheus's act of stealing fire.) Pandora moved into the home of her new husband, and took up her wifely duties..."

Now, said her husband "you have all my worldly goods. You can take care of the house and all the animals that I have. You can go anywhere on my property and clean and sweep every corner, but I beg of you, never go to the north room. Keep it locked at all the times."

Now, Pandora set about her duties and was soon finished. As there was nothing else left to do she beacame restless and bored and so she began to wander around the house and eventually coming to the north room. She tried the door but it was locked, she went away but thoughts of the room kept going around inside her head. "Maybe i can just take a little look "she thought to herself, just take a quick peek, surely there would be no harm in that". After a little while she decided she would get the keys and open the door.She returned to the room and unlocked the door and the door opened silently, Pandora peered into the room, but it was totally empty with the exception of a box in the middle of it. Pandora's curiosity knew no bounds, she felt compelled to open the box, and so she did and out came hundreds of creatures looking like insects. The insect like creatures bit and stung Pandora all over her body her then they flew up and spread out into the room. Quickly, Pandora shut the lid and sat on it. While sitting there on the box she heard knocking coming from inside it. Now she was reluctant to open the box again thinking that she had already done enough harm. "Let me out", said a tiny voice, "and maybe I can help you". Pandora thought about it and decided to take one more chance. She opened the box and out came a tiny fairy .

"I am Hope,said the fairy, Pandora due to your curiosity you have let out all possible troubles for mankind. There will be no peace of mind for humans from this day forth. There will be greed and jealousy,insanity and lust, there will be plague and hatred,men will fight each other,wives will be set against husbands,sons against fathers,brother againgst brother,there will be famine,pestilence,vice and destruction.The world will know great sorrow...............

Hearing this Pandora started to cry and sob terribly, for the great harm she had brought upon herself and her fellow humans."Do not cry so much Pandora,said the fairy, "yes it is true that you have unleashed all manner of afflictions upon the world , but you have also let me out. I will always be there to bring hope to humans, whenever they are in trouble. I will always be there as the promise of Hope!.

Lying within every disaster is Hope and from the Greek myth of Pandora's Box we see that the gods in their wisdom and kindness(even though the human race was being punished for the wrongs of Prometheus) saw to it that we would have hope and that it should still be found in amongst the evil,misfortunes and calamities that have beset humankind since the dawn of time. When we find life too hard,tough and painful,hope can be a temporary but calming sedative to the troubled soul. Initially it is hope, sometimes illusory, that gets us through the early stage of the misfortunes that befall us.[i] Often people who articulate hope well in times of disaster and turmoil are elevated to the status of heroes...

Following the first initial phase of upheaval or disaster,the first task is turning hope into optomistic and realistic plans for the future that will possibbly alleviate the problem and maybe prevent it's re-occurrence. But hope also has another side to it,it is the side that can show it's face when we are either unable or not willing to transform this illusory hope into realistic hope. It is an immature denial of reality,a flight into fantasy that someone/something will simply appear magically, making things better. A fantasy like this would be to pin your hopes on winning a lottery and solving all your money problems that way rather than make some workable plan to deal with them. Now it would be fair to say that the majority of us are given to both forms of hope,illusory and realistic although circumstance and our personal history will often be the decider as to which form will dominate. We need to have a sense of hope in either form in order to survive but it is important that we know the difference between the two.

The opposite of hope and the most unbearable of the human emotions is Hopelessness. It is said that "where there is life there is hope"..but might it not be that "where there is hope there is life"?.....it would seem that with hope gone that even rising from our bed each day would be futile......without hope what sort of life are we to have...?...It certainly would be without love or meaning. A living death.