There was a time when I felt this way too. I think it may have been just another coping mechanism but I may be wrong. If there is no hope, you cannot be disappointed if something goes wrong. The thought of hoping for me was irrational - like jumping off of a precipice. Why bother with the hoping? Things are going to turn out the way they do - either way. So dispense with it. There was rationalization there - not necessarily right reason.
But hope is a natural function of the mind and the spirit I intuit. I wonder just how far we would have evolved in different ways without it. Hope gives us wings but those wings must be balanced and know how to fly rightly.
Perhaps hope is one of those stirrings of the emotions/spirit that we find to be irrational because we try to stifle our humanity.
Why is it that many of the things which make us more human we disregard as being stupid, silly and just being weak?
Hope isn’t necessarily the same as having expectations ~~ it’s just the realization that that which IS possible CAN/MAY come to fruition. Doesn’t one have to have HEART in order to accomplish anything? That’s not to say that something cannot be accomplished without heart and hope but it’s kind of a sterile objective, don’t you think?
One who cannot have hope is a pessimist (at times I may have been a borderline one) just as one who does not have discerning or realistic hope is delusional or one who sees all of life through rose-colored glasses. Both are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Balance is important in carrying hope in our hearts.
Only if we have faulty expectations. To hope for something is not the same as expecting something, is it?
Hope gives us the momentum to spur us on. Hope is the lens which sees possibilities.
I firmly believe that ALSO denying something which may be built into us, as part of our hardwiring, can equally make us if not psychotic than at least neurotic…which is a denial of legitimate suffering. What was it that was at the bottom of Pandora’s Box?
True, denying what’s human and normal and acting in contradiction to that can do the same as what you say above.
All to counteract the emptiness which is sometimes a part of being human. Trying to fill ourselves up with meaningless fillings instead of allowing that space within us to know ourselves.
Hope and expectation are conceptually similar, the only difference is in the individual’s ideology of the future event. It’s basically probability vs possibility, expectation being more agressive and hope being more passive. I hope you understand this vs I expect you to understand this… your ability to understand is what it is… regardless of whether I hope or expect you to understand. This is a disconnection from reality, a delusion of how things actually are. Both of these concepts make it so that I perceive reality differently than it is or it isn’t. Rather than accepting that you have a specific understanding of the topic and react accordingly, such concepts influence me to approach the situation in a biased manner.
All expectations are flawed. We don’t require hope to be motivated, we require purpose. I don’t expect the emotionally and behaviorally disabled teens that I work with to change, nor do I hope they change… I do it because I enjoy being a mentor, it fulfills me, it gives me a sense of purpose. I accept that some of these teens are too heavily damaged to transcend their conditioning/acculturation/indoctrination. Just as I accept that some will transcend their issues. Just because you do not hope/expect doesn’t mean that you lack motivation or purpose, it just means that you’re unencumbered and free to do what you authentically desire to do.
I agree. Which is why my personal ideology is based on my Nature, rather than my Nurture. Many times, our Nurture is in direct opposition to our Nature and it causes dysfunction in us. For instance, as a child I was heavily abused (phsyically, sexually, emotionally) and I couldn’t make sense of it, because I didn’t want to hurt others. This led to a lot of dysfunction in my psyche. I was constantly seeking to escape and when I couldn’t escape, I would degenerate into fits of irrational rage at those who prevented me from escaping. I suffered bouts with depression, as I had no purpose and whenever I hoped/expected, I was always disappointed… leading to frustration and eventually resentment. This made me quite bitter, shifting between anger and apathy all the time. I withdrew from everyone, because people had only ever hurt me.
Finally, when looking honestly at my life due to health issues and the possibility of my own mortality, I started to see all these things. I decided that I was tired of being something that I’m not, I was fed up being a puppet. I started to retrain myself, to be the person I want to be, rather than the person I was conditioned to be. I noticed the patterns of dysfunction and started to be conscious of how they influenced/manipulated/controlled me. I discovered that I was finally free to make conscious decisions, rather than ingrained ones. I’m only a couple of months into the process and I have almost 40 years worth of conditioning to undo, but I’m getting there.
Emptiness is not a part of being human, it’s an ideology that we’re force fed. We don’t have holes in us that need to be filled, that is merely what we’ve been conditioned to believe. We cannot accept ourselves as we currently exist, so we chase things to bring us happiness… but we’re not chasing happiness, we’re chasing things that we think will make us happy… it’s pretty amusing actually, because we’re doing the exact opposite of what will bring us happiness, being content in who we are. We place conditions on happiness, i.e. I won’t allow myself to be happy until my list of things (e.g. conditions) is complete, but it never gets complete… because we get so focused on the items that we will prioritize them over actual happiness.
