Sacha Catala

COM 122 - Section 17

12/10/2014

Hope

Hope: A brighter future

Hope is the confident expectation of good things to come. It is the beginning of our
pursuit of happiness.
We all hope for good things to come, we expect to gain things in life and we work really
hard to have them. However, sometimes we find ourselves waiting a long time for something
that, as we wait, seems further and further away. It is hard to be patient, especially when we have
already done everything possible to have something, or to achieve something. After some time,
the tendency of most people is start doubting if what they want will really come. It is also
common start doubting our capacities to reach our goals, or obtain what we desire the most. We
start losing hope.
As we experience a variety of situations in life, we learn about ourselves. In my case,
learning and identifying my strengths, helped me to become more hopeful, more confident in my
expectations. I have never learned so much about my personal strengths than during this
semester. I had identified some before, but I did not fully know how they worked and how to use
them. Utilizing my strengths helped me to improve different aspects of my life, and gave me
hope of things that I was waiting for, but seemed so far away.
A few months back, I wanted to make a step forward and look for a better job. I was
interested in the field of finance and I started looking for some bank jobs that could help me in
my career also. I have never worked in a bank before, and after looking a few options, I decided I
was going to work for Wells Fargo. As an international student, we have restrictions in our
permission to work, and we are required to provide a lot of information before getting the
approval to work. Also, the process to get into a bank was longer than most jobs and would
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Sacha Catala
COM 122 - Section 17
12/10/2014

Hope

require several interviews, exams, and paperwork. However, I had this confident expectation that
I was able to do it, so I started my application.
The first step in my application was a group interview, which was in my opinion the
hardest and most terrifying one. I was prepared, but when I got there everything seemed
extremely difficult and passing the interview just sounded impossible. While I was waiting for
the interview to start, I started talking with the other three individuals in my group. All of them
had graduated with a bachelors degree, one of them had even two degrees, and I was the only
one that barely started his second year of college. I started doubting my qualifications for the job,
but I tried to stay focused and remember everything I had prepared.
I said a prayer before the interview, and I answered the questions as best as I could.
Surprisingly I was the one who passed the interview. I was not sure at the moment what made
me pass, but as I was leaving from my interview, I remembered that a few days back, I learned
that my top one strength was responsibility. Preparing myself and practicing how to answer
questions for the interview was my responsibility acting towards my desire of getting the job. For
me, getting the job and improving my experience in the field was what I hoped for, and putting
my strengths to use was the way that I increased my confidence on getting it.
As I learned how to use my strengths better, I was more able to overcome the challenges
that were waiting for me ahead. After the group interview, I had to pass an online exam and then
another interview. It took me almost two months until I reached the final step that was
interviewing with different managers that would like to have me work for them. During my last
interview, we went through different questions and at the very end he looks at me and says: well
Sacha, I think that you have a great work experience and profile, but tell me, why would I want

Sacha Catala
COM 122 - Section 17
12/10/2014

Hope

to hire you instead of some other great candidates with great backgrounds too? In that moment I
knew what I needed to say. My me in 60 seconds was basically a strengths based summary of the
things that I could contribute with the team. Knowing my strengths and using them brought me
what I was hoping for.
Hope is the beginning. First you analyze what you want, and you build the confidence
that you can obtain it. In our minds, obtaining the things that we wish for is our unconscious
concept of being happy. Since everyone wants to be happy, which mostly means obtain the
things that we want the most in life, hope sometimes is related with dreaming. However, we have
a sincere hope when we act towards what we want. We work, we practice, we wait, and we act.
Sometimes the things we want may seem very far away, but that confidence commits us to keep
going and be patient, because at its time, we will reach our desires. During that time, we put our
strengths to work, and we do our best. When we do that, we see that our chances increase, and
something that once seemed very difficult, it turns out to be closer than we though. That is how
hope motivates us, and our strengths act together.
Successful people always have hope and work on their strengths because they know that
otherwise, there is no way that they will succeed in their plans. Successful people are hopeful
because they hope for things, take the responsibility and work to achieve their goals. On the
other hand, we see sad people that waited a lot for things that never came. In most of those cases,
they worked hard for what they wanted, but either gave up and lost hope, or did not used their
strengths.
I have had several experiences during the semester where I was able to use my strengths
in order to achieve personal goals. For example, at the beginning of the semester, I wanted to

Sacha Catala
COM 122 - Section 17
12/10/2014

Hope

have all my classes above 94%. I really felt confident about it and I planned a way that I would
have time to do all my homework and study for my exams. I enrolled in 17 credit hours, and
after a whole semester of working on my strengths and keeping up with my goal, I have found
myself in the last week of class with all my classes above 94% and still working to accomplish
my goal. There were times during the semester that it seemed very difficult, specially working
and taking so many credit hours at the same time, but I kept going and now I am so close to
achieve this. Hope gives me strength, and my strengths help me overcome challenges. This way
of living brings me happiness because I feel that there are still awesome things to come and an
even brighter future.