Hope is knowing that football fans, like the scarves we wear, are made to be lifted up. Because our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Confucious said that ye know, or was it Stephen Craigan?
Like Fir Parks fearsome roar, hope arouses a passion for the possible. It helps us achieve the unthinkable - Motherwell 4 Dundee Utd 3.
We can live 40 days without food, 3 days without water and 8 minutes without air. We can spend 4 days in Nancy without changing our replica shirts but we cannot live for 1 second without hope.
Hope is not caring if we win with a sclaffed goal from 2 yards off of the referees arse.
Hope is calculating that the £2m prize fund for reaching the group stages would mean we could offer Steve Jennings a 5 year deal on increased wages, hope is booking the holidays off work for the next games "just incase".
Most of all, hope is like a path in the country - there never was a path, but when many of us walk the same ground, the path comes into existence. This is the path we follow - wherever it takes us, whatever it takes.
Into this Danish shite Motherwell, I believe!