Almost all of us grew up, as my good friend Esther puts it, ‘with unicorns and fairytales’. We so firmly believed in the triumph of good over evil, magic dust that made dreams come true, and of course, in the Happily Ever After.

We sighed as children over images of handsome princes swooping in to save the damsel in distress just in the nick of time, while she swooned and sighed and looked at him with luminous big eyes that spoke of her undying gratitude for him. We cheered on as the underdog in any given situation trumped up the big bad bully and were told time and time again of the power of believing in ourselves.

Then, we grew up.

I forget exactly when I stopped believing with all my heart.

It might have been somewhere in between my confiding to my father that I wanted to save the world (or something to that effect), or when I realized bad things happen to good people.

I think I must have been distraught (because things like injustice always distress me) because my father would have definitely said something like “life’s not fair, my dear” to which my response probably would have been a few disappointed tears trickling down my (then) chubby cheeks.

It just seemed so contradictory, to be told one thing as a child, and to have the rules completely reversed as we attain a certain age.

As young ‘uns, we were oft told that ‘the world was our oyster’. We could achieve anything, all we needed to do was believe and persevere; that nothing bad would ever happen to us if we played by the rules.

It’s sad how the mighty have fallen. I may have attained the age of adulthood, and am allegedly ‘older and wiser’ and all those clichéd things, but here’s a secret: I still believe. I really do.

I believe that every person has a good heart, I believe in the indomitable strength of the human spirit; that good does eventually win out over evil (albeit not in the same life time; hence, one must also possess the virtue of patience); that true love happens.

It’s just a lot harder, believing, as an adult. You are laughed at, and looked down on for your naïveté and pitifully called a dreamer. True, there will be instances when your beliefs may be tempered, but personally I feel that there’s no reason to stop wanting things to be different.

Look around you—look at the wonderful, amazing people devoted to NGOs and social work, think of all those people out there doing unpaid work to help others. In fact, don’t look too far—look at your own mothers or grandparents who have done so much.

Maybe I am a dreamer. But there’s also a part of me that’s a realist that knows that shit does happen to good people. But I reckon the day we stop believing, both in ourselves and the people around us, is the day we have ceased to hope. And without hope, what else is there to live for?