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What is the latin to english translation of the latin phrase 'spes vitae fulcrum'?

I was wondering what it meant as it is on my family crest and I was thinking of getting it tattooed because it sounds cool but I want to know if it has a decent meaning.

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1. Roughly: Hope is the key to life. The word 'fulcrum does not literally mean key: it means the point about which a lever turns, and on which it rests - in other words the one essential part of the machine. 'Key' struck me as the best idiomatic equivalent in English. It is certainly a striking motto, and quite decent.
2. It means either "Hope [is] the couch-post of life" (original meaning of "fulcrum") or, by extension, "Hope [is] the couch of life" (the place where life rests? the bed where life is conceived or born?); or it means "Hope is the balance-point of life"--the meaning "fulcrum" has come to have. I vote for the last choice!
3. Something to do with a balanced outlook - only a guess - fulcrum. What is the latin to english translation of 'spes vitae fulcrum'? "Hope is the fulcrum of life." Fulcrum in Classical Latin was "bedpost". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plrpTaYUd6Q