just

'Just'. I don't write of it today as an adjective that stems off the word 'justice' but write of it as an adverb. For example: I 'just' want to write about the word, just.

"In the end, I just want to have a good job." I heard this from a teenager recently and felt it to be the saddest, most self-undercutting statement I have heard in a while. His teenage youth only added weight to his words that carried undeniable overtones of hopelessness. Maybe hopelessness is too extreme to say. Lost dreams that never even materialized may be more accurate.

That quote wrenched my heart. It's different for one to say, "I want to have a good job" as opposed to "I just want to have a good job".

The contrasting juxtaposition is similar to be at a great feast and hear a young boy with a still-high timbre in his voice say, "I want the rice pudding..and..and..." all while the elderly grandfather murmurs for just the easily-digestible rice pudding. For the young boy, as he asks this, his eyes are darting around the dinner table. His eyes and nose cannot settle on any one thing and he has trouble asking for what it is he wants -- until he stammers, "I.. I..I just want it all." The grandfather looks on, already three and a half spoonfuls into his pudding and realizes that 'all' for him is confined merely to the rest of the pudding that is left in his bowl -- just the rice pudding.

When we qualify our statements with 'just', it's almost always limiting. It's synonymous with only, exactly, precisely, barely, perhaps and possibly. Everything about it points to the cracks where hope leaks. Where hope, unaware to us, escapes and goes on to be misplaced until we believe that hope lies in "just" something; whether it be good grades, a job, or even a nice family.

I speak on behalf of genuine hope when I say that it actively lies in everything - waiting for its moment to empower and enable faith. However, at the end, the little boy broke all the limiting effects of 'just'. As he struggled to grasp a way to have everything that was presented before him on the dining table, hope interjected and he clamored that he just wanted it all.