It is only four letters long and yet the difference it makes and the energy it unleashes sets it gamely apart from having a zest for living and not living at all.

I am talking about hope - that instinct that gives cause for optimism to appreciate life, and which has ceaselessly drove mankind through the ages in pursuit of a better tomorrow.

Next to hope, comes the exercise of choice. Just to how lucky we are to live in a society that creates various choices becomes dependent on the mission of hope we take unto ourselves, and the options that become available because of that endeavour.

So for every hope that illumines we are also looking at a choice - a choice through which we resolve to the kind of world we want; and with it the right for a better life.

And with every choice we pick we get the society we want. And what the vicarious result of all this amounts to, is the sum total of our collective bonding as humans.

"If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance for you to contribute to making a better world. That's your choice,'' says renowned author Noam Chomsky, in The Chronicles of Dissent.

So in by seeking the succour of employers and society at large to provide jobs and opportunities to the disadvantaged, we essentially lend to Chomsky's dictum of what we need to make on the choices open to our space and what we want for all of us.

But opportunities are just not about simply creating them.

They must lend hope and has also to be matched by the practice of giving.

Only then can the bonding mentioned earlier on be realised in full, with no disparate parts dangling precariously about.

That hope indeed should exist, is also conditioned by the values, beliefs and mores peculiar only to us; and which we all hold so very dear. When Madame Ho Geok Choo, president of the Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI) raised that enlightened point in her organisation's October 2004 newsletter, it became a telling inference to acknowledging our sense of humanity.

Second chance

Let's take the case of ex-cons for example.

By giving them a second chance, they have the space to move on as well an opportunity to forge ahead towards a new life. A so-called truce with former prisoners takes more than the articulation of a policy, or a simple urging of a change in mindsets. Their reintegration has to be in real and concrete forms.

To date, many human resource practices and documentation continue in their outdated forms that request applicants to state their religious beliefs, race, names of siblings and lo and behold, Income Tax reference numbers!

And, perhaps the most nerve-racking part of all - depending on the answer he gives in a job application form or in the position he is seeking - is when an ex-con would need to recall a previous conviction.

So psychologically crippling is that the hopes with which he flushed himself for a second jab at life evaporates. He then decides whether or not to return to his old ways.

If there really is something we can do for ex-offenders to reintegrate into society, it will be good to fine-tune the way questions are posed.

Instead of asking if he was convicted of an offence, a time frame can be inserted and the question rephrased into asking if he had a recent conviction, say perhaps anything over the last five years.

What happens if the offence had been serious enough to cause grave implications to the post he is seeking?

A symbolic act, but what we give to ex-offenders is also of what we continually seek for ourselves: hope and opportunity.

A small step perhaps but an undeniably giant leap.

And when we all come out of it acknowledging one another's frailties, it all amounts to what author Lawana Blackwell once said that the only form of 'revenge [there] is in its forgiveness.'

Let's therefore give hope to all of us - the fortunate, the unfortunate and also of course, to the socially stigmatised.

And when we do that, we hasten this day and all other days to the Chomsky ideal of what a better world should look like. And the choice as was opined, can only be for us to make that difference.

JAYA PRAKASH lectures in journalism in Beacon School Of Technology.

Postcards is a column written by readers, about anything and everything. Send in a 1000-word essay to dina@malaysiakini.com should you be inspired.