2006 — 8th Grade - 1st Place

Nathan Lane, Florida


Hope is more powerful than fear. Fear is the basic instinct that all animals possess, but hope is a deeper feeling that reaches more into the heart of the common people. Fear has suppressed action, but hope has lead large revolutions. Fear can hold people in place, but hope can make them realize their situation. Even though optimism doesn’t pay off sometimes, it pays off much more than pessimism ever did.

Fear is a primal instinct of survival, one that can push us to the very edge. It is often used in order to benefit one person, but continual fear can result in that one person regretting their actions. Fear is fleeting, and leaves first thing that one's life isn't in danger.

Hope is much of a deeper feeling, more closely related to what many people consider the human soul. While fear is an instinct only represents a human's primal side, hope is grasped by the entirety of who we are. Hope is what drives us on in the most desperate of times, and is strong support for a weakened resolve.

Fear is conditional, related with the well-being of the continuity of a person's life, but hope is blind and unconditional in its highest form. No matter how dire the circumstances, there are no bounds to hope. Hope is the very feeling that drives us on in our entire life. Hope ties in with ambition and drives the very soul of a society.

Fear is often used to govern a society, but the thing that really fuels a society from deep within is hope. The absence of fear might benefit a society, but the absence of hope would only be a detriment to all that we live for. Hope controls everyone in the society's feelings, and therefore plays more of a crucial role in an orderly area. Without hope there is not as much to live for.

When looking upon the amount of hope that a person has, it is often common to find that there is more hope present in bad times. If a person loses something or a vast quantity of things, the void that is normally filled by assurance of success and the happiness of a fortunate situation is replaced by hope and a degree of sorrow. It's hard to get anywhere with sorrow, which is an emotion often governed by fear or loss, but with the power tapped by hope it is easier to get back to the assurance of a good life. Whether we are in fear of death or fear of loss, hope can always be used to find a purpose in life.

Fear is the brutal thing that knocks us down and makes us resort to terrible methods of survival, but hope is the thing that helps us to rise higher than we ever were before.


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