Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. - Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption

There are times when life really gets me down, and during those moments I’m often guilty of having a defeatist attitude about things. When I see a hurdle that seems insurmountable, I figure what’s the point in trying to leap it, I’m never gonna succeed anyway. The odds are always against me, so why bother?

Then I learned a little lesson recently. One of my most favorite Snapple flavors is Diet Iced Tea-Lemonade. I could drink gallons of this stuff in a day and still never get bored. But then suddenly I had a hard time finding it anywhere. The local supermarkets no longer seemed to stock them, so on a friend’s suggestion I decided to email Snapple. I figured it can’t hurt, even though I expected my email would be ignored. Nobody cares what I think anyway.

Well, I actually did get a response, but they said they were no longer distributing that flavor and would be discontinuing it due to low demand.

Figures. Why did I bother to send the email anyway? Really, when is a major corporation gonna care about anything I had to say? I’m just one guy after all. And I’m not even good looking.

Then a few months later, I hit one of the local supermarkets to get some grub and was shocked to find STACKS of Diet Iced Tea-Lemonade Snapples littered all over the place. Now every supermarket had ‘em on the shelves, so I started buying up cases like crazy as soon as there was a sale. You should see my apartment right now, it looks like a Snapple warehouse.

I guess Snapple had a change of heart, but whether I was part of the reason why or not, I got the point.

If you have something to say, then your voice should be heard, regardless of whether anyone is listening or not. If we lay down our arms, accepting defeat, we will never have victory. But if we stand up and fight and let our voice be heard, whether it’s for justice, (or to get back a favorite drink), then we have hope. We may not always have the victory, but we will always have hope of one.

So in all things, let us hope. Hope for a better future. Hope for justice to prevail. Hope for good to triumph over evil. Hope that Jessica Alba will someday give me a call.