Quoting Penguindrum: There Are Two Kinds Of People In This World

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who see hope, and those who shun it.

People who see hope are often honest and self-objective.  They can admit that it is their own problematic past choices resulting in the current hurdles they face.   Be they strong-willed or not, these people will all understand the need to make different choices in the future, so that which trouble them today might be gone tomorrow.  So, once they’re to see some hopeful signs that their situation can change, they will willingly put up the needed effort to go past their hurdles, change their upcoming choices, and turn their lives around for the better. 

People who shun hope, on the other hand, are often also dishonest: they tend to blame the world for their own bad, willful choices.  Wielding the victim card to excuse the damages they’re doing on themselves (and others) out of their own character weaknesses, they are angry, defensive people ever fearful that someone might call them on their farce.  Taking precious time that might be better spend on mending their own broken situations, they’d instead spend it on attacking those who dare to offer workable solutions to their problems.  Why?  Because, such solutions will often require changes in future decisions – changes that will shred light on just how willful and damaging those past choices leading to their current predicament really are.  God forbid if they have to take responsibility for their own actions.  Worse, these hope-shunning people will often band together under some flag of commiseration, as they then come up with methods – some dramatic, others stealth, all underhanded - aiming to discredit the solutions offered and the ones offering them.  Just as they labor to protect their own willful blindness, so too shall these people deprive others in need of easy access to the solutions offered: this is all part of their selfish, harmful nature.

I am happy to say that my friends are all in the former group, and that they’re all strong enough not to be brought down by the latter.  Good for them, and all the best to their continuous self-bettering endeavors!