When you get stuck in a moment, you should remember that somewhere out there, someone always comes along with a pocket full of hope.

Yesterday I spent all my coins and dollar bills on little deeds. I had skipped breakfast because I got up late. Because of the mad rush, I forgot my lunch. When I was on my way to buy my lunch, a person in need asked me if I could spare him some cash, so I decided to lend him first.

So, then later in the evening, I was heading home anxiously awaiting dinner. However. I got a call from my mum saying that she was stuck working late and wouldn't be able to prepare dinner for me. Even though there was no food in the house, I told my mum not to worry as I could surely find myself something to munch.

While I was still processing this sudden set of changes in my food options for the day, I passed a young man with a broad smile handing out samples of crackers（饼干）at a supermarket. He gave me a packet and said, "How about you taking some more for school tomorrow?" In response to that, I returned a warm smile to him and opened up my bag. He gladly filled it with 20 packets. I was excited.

Whether you call it luck or fate, I just wanted to say that somewhere out there someone came along carrying a pocket of hope in his heart and shared a piece of it with me! Somebody out there will one day do the same for you!

About five weeks ago, I noticed the skin of our pet lizard was growing dusty. It worried me. I reported the strange surface on the skin of the lizard to my husband and children the next morning. Seconds later, our lizard emerged from its tank with its old skin flowing behind it.

I didn't think about it much until a morning last week when I knocked my favorite teapot off the table. It burst into hundreds of pieces. As I swept up the mess, I wondered why we had been breaking so many things over the months.

The destruction started three months ago. It was my husband's birthday. He had just lost his job. The uncertainty was starting to wear on us, so I wanted to do something special.

“Let's make a cake for Dad!” I cried.

My kids screamed with joy. We baked, iced and sprinkled for most of the day. Candles on the cake! Balloons on the walls! Flowers on the table!

Two hours before my husband came back home from another job interview, my daughter climbed up to grab a glass vase from a high shelf. It fell and crashed beside the cake. Tiny pieces of glass were everywhere. She sobbed loudly as I threw the cake away. My husband had banana pudding for his birthday.

Three days ago, the light in our living room suddenly went out. After several frustrating hours of unsuccessful attempts to fix it, my husband suggested watching the Michael Jordan documentary series The Last Dance.

The poignancy of Jordan retiring from his beloved basketball to play baseball and what had pushed him to make such a tough decision took me by surprise. As I watched him take off his basketball uniform and replace it with a baseball uniform, I saw him leaving behind the layer that no longer served him, just as our lizard had. Neither of them chose the moment that had transformed them. But they had to live with who they were after everything was different. Just like us. I realized that we have to learn to leave the past behind.

Humans do not shed skin as easily as other animals. The beginning of change is upsetting. The process is tiring. Damage changes us before we are ready. I see our lizard, raw and nearly new.

Jordan said that no matter how it ends, it starts with hope. With our tender, hopeful skin, that is where we begin.