Narrating. “In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty. …………..Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of s*** smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I just don’t want to. Five hundred yards…..that’s the length of five football fields, just shy of a mile.” Laugh out loud. Trust me, the crawling through foulness part always gets me.

They say art has a way of imitating life or is it the other way around? I therefore ask for your tolerance every time I make a reference to a movie in some of my articles. Tell me, are there no real life stories of prison breaks? The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 movie that keeps being recycled on TV almost on a yearly basis. Somebody there at Multichoice must love it the way I do. My brother and I make it a point to watch it from our different sitting rooms just to get the kicks out of it. Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is framed and falsely imprisoned for murders he did not commit. He is sentenced to life imprisonment at Shawshank Prison. There he meets and befriends a fellow inmate called Red (Morgan Freeman). Over years Andy uses a tiny rock hammer to dig a tunnel through the wall which he uses to escape. His journey to freedom also involves crawling in the prison sewage pipe.

Like kids eagerly waiting to be handed out cookies, my brother and I always wait the for the part when Red narrates about crawling in the foulness of the sewage pipe and then we get to recite along with him. “Doing the Shawshank” is how we cheekily describe a situation where you have no choice but face challenges head on. The Shawshank Redemption to me is a movie about hope.

As we are now on the verge of welcoming the year 2021, we can not wait to close the final chapter on 2020. It has been challenging year mainly because of the Coronavirus  pandemic and the way it has wreaked havoc in our lives. When I look back at the year that has been, the picture is largely hazy. All I know is that months into the pandemic I am still here and if you are reading this article, you are also here. Thank goodness! Even though our plans went awry in 2020,everyone is hoping that 2021 will be a better year. I am not good at putting pen to paper but I know of people who always write down new year resolutions. Whether they get to action them or not, is something else. New year resolutions are a sign of hope.  

The meaning of Hope

A common thread that runs through the many definitions of hope is that it is an expectation that we have about a desired outcome to certain events or circumstances in our life. Hope springs from a place of positivity in one’s state of mind.  Hope is also the lifeline we need to see us through life challenges.

According to psychologist Charles Snyder, hope is “the existence of a goal, combined with a determined plan for reaching that goal”. He came up with three major elements that make up for hopeful thinking.

• Goals-  approaching life in a goal-oriented way.

Andy Dufresne was sentenced to life in prison over a crime he did not commit. We all know how almost impossible it is to break out of prison and any other Andy would never have entertained that idea but instead live with the unfairness life had dished out. When our Andy was serving time in prison, he made it his goal to escape. He hoped to do the impossible. Having goals makes us future oriented and gives us hope as opposed to being stuck in the past.

• Pathways- Finding different ways to achieve goals.

I have often observed that when a car is stuck in mud, the more you rev it the more the wheels dig deeper and the more stuck it gets. Sometimes using the same solution to solve the same problem can result in “stuckness” and loss of hope. The viewing of  a problem from a different angle is called reframing. We appreciate that life is full of possibilities and by reframing the one may be able come up with a different solution. Problem solving also involves coming up with various options. If solution A does not work, then try B and so on. That is how hope moves you forward.

In prison our Andy stumbled upon information that could exonerate him. Hopeful, he approached the prison authorities with the news which unfortunately saw him being thrown into a torture chamber for two months. Any other Andy would have given up hope but our Andy decided to chisel his way out for 20 years.

• Agency – Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals.

We all possess the resources within and around us to effect change in our lives. However when faced with a “crippling” crisis we feel helpless and become hopeless. Sometimes it takes someone to help you realize your capabilities or to empower you with the necessary skills to achieve your goals. Our own Andy had the willpower to escape and his external resource was his friend Red, the hustler who could smuggle anything into prison. He smuggled a rock hammer for Andy.  Any other Andy would have baulked at the idea of being in possession of such a dangerous item. Hope starts with believing in ourselves and that we are deserving of positive outcomes once we get into action.

The opposite of hope is despair

Unfortunate circumstances do not make us prisoners, but our minds. When we allow hope to die we sink into despair, a dark and deep tunnel. There you will find helplessness, the victim mentality, self blame and loathing, regret, depression and other negative feelings.

When our hopes are dashed there are also times we feel that life is not worth living. Much as it is considered taboo to talk about suicide, in therapy we have a duty to explore it. If a client presents with some of the above toxic feelings, those are red flags. We explore suicidal ideations, if any are present and depending on risk levels we may seek external support or help the client crawl out of that dark tunnel towards hope. The loss of hope is dangerous place to be.

With a prison life sentence any other Andy could have told himself he no longer had a reason for living. He could have used that rock hammer to end his life as quickly and as effectively. But our Andy had a better and long term plan for that chisel. Our Andy might have been a prisoner at Shawshank but his mind refused to be. He was already free and living large in Mexico years before he got there. That’s hope. Snyder also points out that there is link between hope and mental willpower.

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of thing, and no good thing ever dies.

Andy Dufresne- The Shawshank Redemption

Hope and setting goals

Hope sometimes sounds like something passive. For those who are fortunate good things happen to us simply by hoping while some have to put hope into action. To me hope is a doing word. It is about taking the necessary steps towards realizing our dreams or achieving our goals. How?

• By setting realistic goals.

Andy knew that breaking out of prison by holding prison guards hostage or something crazy like that was not possible. Instead, he had long years ahead of chiselling towards his freedom. He was also aware of his capacity within the confines of prison.  When we fail to set realistic and attainable goals we are inadvertently  setting ourselves up for failure and despair.

• By actioning

A man always used to pray to God that he wanted to become rich by winning a lottery ticket. For years he prayed and hoped for that stroke of luck or was it for a miracle? Still he remained as poor as a church mouse and began to despair. Towards the end of His patience God shouted, “Buy the lottery ticket first!”.  The man needed to take action.

There are also times we have to be prepared to crawl through dirt with the hope of coming out clean on the other side. No, this is not the Machiavellian type of dirt where the end justifies the means, this is about true grit.

Andy Dufresne- Who crawled through a river if s*** and came out clean on the other side.

Red- The Shawshank Redemption

• By taking small steps and having no pressure

Every night when the prison lights went off our Andy would quietly carve out the wall and make sure that by the next day he would dispose of very small and undetectable quantities of rock debris on prison grounds. He did that for many years and managed to carve out a tunnel long and wide enough for him to crawl through. You see, Lady Hope and Lady Patience are very good friends.

•  By being mentally prepared

The odds were stacked against our Andy. His digging tool was very small and Red thought it would take someone 600 years to dig a tunnel with it. Chances of being found out were also high but Andy hid his handiwork behind a pin-up poster. If caught that would have literally spelt his doom. The prison authorities were known to be ruthless. Andy told himself that he was going to escape, and at no point did he give up.

However we also need to keep it real because what we hope for sometimes may not come out that way. We need to develop the mental strength to tell ourselves that we tried but the outcome was not what we expected and then harbour no regrets.  

There are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone. That there’s something inside…that they can’t get to, that they can’t touch. It’s yours ….Hope.

 Andy Dufresne

• By  celebrating each milestone

No matter how small the achievement, we need to celebrate milestones because that is hope moving forward. There would be not milestones to talk of if there was no hope. Milestones are different for everyone. For some it’s simply being able to drag yourself out of bed to face life with hope when things are falling apart around you.

No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never give up.

 Keeping hope in motion

One of the things that separate us humans from other animals is our capacity for hope. We are here because of hope. Hope is what made Thomas Edison make 1000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. I bet with every attempt he had his fingers crossed and I would not be surprised if he ended up with knobby fingers!

Hope is what we have in that the Covid19 vaccine will be effective and we will all have access to it. Hope is what keeps us making new year resolutions and planning our future despite potential challenges. Hope is what kept Andy Dufresne going even when he suddenly found himself crawling through a sewage pipe as long as three football fields. Hope is our lifeline.

May your hopes be fulfilled in 2021.