Dear Caminoheads,

Today I woke up to a grey, cold and rainy Buenos Aires. And a very long to-do list. I am still to figure out what happens during the weekends or the evenings in the work computers, because it is not reasonable that every morning and particularly every Monday morning, the number of emails exceeds what I can take care of in half a day. Imagine the questions and answers: “What do you work on?”, “Me? I work replying emails!” (and the other half of my “working” day, I attend to teleconferences.) Unreal. Some Mondays, by 10 AM, I am ready for a cry and a chocolate bar (a big one! or a giant cookie, as the one Phil’s Rebecca posted using their sweet granddaughter as the “cookie model”!)

But then, I take a moment to breathe and I realize that I am passionate about my job; and in part it is because to me, my job is an endless well of hope. Yes, we do science which may sound like the opposite of hope, but that is why we do what we do: we apply science with the firm belief that we are bringing hope to others.

And what is hope? I realized I needed to go to the dictionary to find a good definition. I went to the Oxford press and New Oxford American dictionary and also to the Real Academia Española for the meaning of the word in Spanish and noted that the definitions are close but not the same. This time, I like the one the Spanish definition best, which says: “It is the state of the heart in which what we wish, presents to us as possible.”

Isn’t that wonderful?

“It is the state of the heart in which what we wish, presents to us as possible.”

It is a failed sentence to say on Monday mornings that “I hope my emails are done by 10 AM” because reality tells me invariably that this wish isn’t possible. Yet, some other things like finding a better treatment for the rare disease I am working on these days, could start with “I hope”, because it is a wish that presents to me as possible.

And this made me think of “The Elders”, this group created by Nelson Mandela when he was 89 years old. I have admired and followed The Elders for many many years now, so have came across Mandela’s vision for this group that was: “The Elders will support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair.”  Yet, today, I am reading it as if it would be the first time, because it is the first time I realize that at 89 years of age, Mandela wanted to inspire a state of the heart in which what we wish, presents to us as possible”.

And of course, I am now thinking what is that I hope for.

Hopeful loves,

Cris

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Oasis 2021 – 20th to 23rd August, 2021

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