Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
White captures something rarely admitted: hope isn't passive sentiment but *active maintenance*, requiring the same deliberate attention we give to winding a clock. Most people think optimism means believing things will naturally improve, but he's suggesting we must tend to it like a mechanical device, wound each day or it stops working. When you're facing layoffs or a failed relationship, this distinction matters—you're not waiting for hope to arrive; you're performing a small, unglamorous ritual to keep it functional.
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason...”
Marcus Aurelius“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. I...”
Viktor Frankl“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Seneca