There exists a brand of hope that infects the human consciousness…the belief that people can fundamentally change.
It's the same optimism that makes someone date a serial cheater thinking "they'll be different with me," or adopt a domesticated tiger that has sent three previous owners to the emergency room because "he just needs love."
Or the friend who insists their perpetually unemployed roommate will definitely start paying rent next month. They've been saying this for two years.
The roommate has, in that time, mastered seventeen video games, learned to juggle, and somehow acquired a PhD in avoiding responsibility, but has not, in fact, paid rent.
Or the spouse who remains convinced that their partner's collection of stuffed frogs will stop expanding.
"They promised," they say, as another shelf is installed. The house now contains more frogs than a biblical plague, but surely, change is just around the corner.
