If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to

Host: The rain had just stopped, leaving the city street glistening under the dim orange glow of the lamplights. The air was cool, tinged with the scent of wet asphalt and coffee steam escaping from a nearby café. Inside, the windows were fogged, the tables half-empty, and a slow jazz tune hummed faintly in the background.

Jack sat by the window, his hands clasped around a coffee cup, eyes fixed on the reflection of passing headlights. Jeeny sat across from him, a small notebook resting open beside her, its pages filled with scribbled thoughts.

The neon sign flickered outside — Faith Café.

Jeeny: “Hazlitt once said, ‘If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.’”

Jack: (scoffs lightly) “Faith. That’s a dangerous word, Jeeny. It’s the same word that’s sent men to wars and women to ruin. Believing doesn’t make something true — it just makes you blind to what’s real.”

Host: The rainwater still dripped from the edges of the awning, each drop catching the light before it fell. Jeeny’s eyes lifted from her notebook, soft yet steady, like a flame refusing to go out.

Jeeny: “And yet, Jack, without faith, how would anyone ever take a first step? The Wright brothers didn’t have proof that humans could fly — they had faith. Every invention, every revolution, every love story began with someone saying, ‘I believe this can be done.’”

Jack: “Belief isn’t what kept their plane in the air — physics did. Faith didn’t make the engine work, engineering did. What you call faith, I call confidence, planning, and calculation. Faith without reason is just hope — and hope doesn’t win wars or build airplanes.”

Host: A gust of wind rattled the windowpane. The barista turned down the lights, leaving the room bathed in a warm, amber haze. Jeeny’s voice lowered, but her words carried the sharpness of conviction.

Jeeny: “Then tell me, Jack, what about when there is no reason left? What about the soldiers in the trenches, the patients on their deathbeds, the children who still smile in poverty? They don’t have logic to lean on — only faith. Isn’t that still a kind of victory?”

Jack: (leans back, eyes narrowing) “You’re confusing endurance with victory. Surviving isn’t winning, Jeeny. It’s just not losing yet.”

Host: A moment of silence hung between them, thick as steam rising from their cups. Outside, a homeless man pushed a cart through the puddles, his reflection flickering in the glass like a ghost of perseverance.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what victory really is — not about conquering, but continuing. Faith isn’t about denying the odds; it’s about defying them.”

Jack: “Defying the odds? Or deluding yourself into ignoring them?”

Host: Jack’s voice was calm, but his jawline tightened. He looked like a man who had once believed — and been betrayed by that belief.

Jeeny: “You talk like someone who’s been hurt by faith.”

Jack: (quietly) “I talk like someone who’s been saved by realism. I used to believe things would work out — that people kept their promises, that hard work always pays off. Then reality showed up — empty wallets, broken trust, and the kind of loss that faith can’t fix.”

Host: The music shifted to a blues rhythm — soft, melancholic. Jeeny’s hand trembled slightly as she lifted her cup, then set it down again with a quiet clink.

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who’s mistaking pain for truth. The fact that you were disappointed doesn’t mean faith is false. It means you expected faith to do what only human effort could. Faith isn’t a magic trick — it’s the spark that starts the fire.”

Jack: “Fire also burns, Jeeny.”

Host: Her eyes met his, the way a flame meets ice — both aware that neither could fully destroy the other.

Jeeny: “And still, you need it to survive the cold.”

Jack: (leans forward, voice low) “You think faith wins wars? It’s not faith that brought victory in 1945 — it was strategy, resources, and ruthless efficiency. Faith doesn’t win battles, Jeeny. Action does.”

Jeeny: “And what made those soldiers fight when they were outnumbered, outgunned, and half-starved? What made the French Resistance keep going when surrender would have been easier? It wasn’t calculation. It was faith — faith in something better, in something worth dying for.”

Host: The rain began again, this time gentler, rhythmic, like a heartbeat against the glass. Jack’s fingers tapped the table, a silent drumbeat of doubt.

Jack: “Faith didn’t stop the bombs, Jeeny. It didn’t bring back the dead. It just made people feel like their suffering meant something.”

Jeeny: “And isn’t that meaning itself a kind of victory? You can’t erase pain, Jack, but faith gives it direction. Even the dying soldier finds peace believing his death will matter. That’s not delusion — that’s dignity.”

Host: Her voice cracked slightly, but the fire behind it only grew. Jack looked at her, his eyes softer now, less like steel, more like storm clouds ready to break.

Jack: “So you’re saying victory isn’t about winning — it’s about believing you can?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because belief changes behavior, and behavior changes outcome. When you believe you can win, you fight differently. You endure differently. That’s what Hazlitt meant.”

Jack: “Or maybe it just keeps you fighting a battle you should’ve walked away from long ago.”

Host: A flash of lightning illuminated the street, freezing their faces in opposing conviction — her faith against his doubt. Then came silence, long and breathing, like the world waiting for an answer.

Jeeny: “Even if you walk away, Jack, something inside you still wants to believe. You wouldn’t argue this hard if you didn’t secretly miss the feeling.”

Host: Jack’s eyes flickered, and for a moment, Jeeny saw not the cynic, but the man beneath — tired, wounded, but still human.

Jack: (quietly) “Maybe. Maybe I miss believing that life was something you could actually win.”

Jeeny: “It still is. Just not the way you think. Victory isn’t out there — it’s in here.” (places a hand over her heart) “Faith isn’t about certainty, Jack. It’s about courage.”

Host: The rain had stopped again. The streetlights reflected off the puddles, like small fragments of a broken sky trying to shine.

Jack: (half-smiles) “You always make it sound so simple.”

Jeeny: “Not simple. Just possible.”

Host: He looked down at his hands, tracing the rim of the coffee cup as if it held a map to something lost. The café had grown quiet, save for the soft hum of the refrigerator and the heartbeat of the city beyond.

Jack: “So you’re saying if I think I can win — I can?”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I’m saying if you don’t think you can — you never will.”

Host: The words hung in the air, light but weighty, like a final note before silence. Jack’s eyes lifted, and for the first time that night, they carried something resembling belief — not in miracles, but in motion.

He nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

Jack: “Maybe faith isn’t blindness. Maybe it’s just seeing… before anyone else does.”

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) “Exactly.”

Host: Outside, the clouds parted, and a pale moonlight slid across the wet pavement, turning the world into a mirror. Jeeny closed her notebook; Jack finished his coffee.

For a moment, neither spoke. They just sat, two souls beneath the hum of the neon sign, watching the city breathe again.

The camera pulled back through the window, the words of Hazlitt echoing faintly against the night:

"If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory."

Host: And somewhere in that quiet — between faith and reason — both of them finally believed.