When we feel desperate and option less we compromise.

By the time that he tried 966, Dima was beginning to give up hope.

Thinking of how many obstacles he would have to overcome, I was overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness.

A prolonged conflict situation creates poverty and want and uncertainty and fear, and it perpetuates a sense of helplessness and lack of dignity.

But is the picture really so bleak as those who despair of an emerging Eurabia would have us believe?

What other way forward is there for that unhappy former country? The answer need not be all despair.

The oil slick was now moving north towards Dassen Island, and the rescuers despaired, because they knew if the oil hit, it would not be possible to rescue any more oiled birds.

People are in despair they are angry at Russia for its aggression and at their own government for provoking this uneven conflict.

And I have three little grandchildren, and when some of these students would say to me at high school or university, they'd say, We're angry, or We're filled with despair, because we feel you've compromised our future, and there's nothing we can do about it.

The pattern is so predictable from year to year that it's not an exaggeration to say that Murakami Nobel hype become an art form in itself it's an all day excursion bookended by optimism and despair.

All of the world's current crises conflict, HIV AIDS, unemployment have one thing in common they all involve young people who are burdened by the despair of these problems, but who are also a largely untapped source of change.

When the crisis in Syria erupted, nobody predicted how serious, protracted, and complex it would turn out to be. For starters, observers underestimated citizens' ever deepening sense of hopelessness, which has driven them to support jihadi groups or the Assad regime.