What is Hope? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? 

Some definitions to consider…

• a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen
• an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large
• Expect with confidence
• Cherish a desire with anticipation

There are some who think  hope is actually a bad thing. They think that a good future is built from placing all one’s energy and attention in the present moment. And when a person hopes, they are throwing their energy and attention into some future moment thereby  squandering the basis for the very thing that one desires.

And some even go so far as to say  hope is pathetic. They believe that if a person wants something they should make an effort to get it. If a person has no control over it then hoping doesn’t change the outcome. It just leaves you wasting time wishing. And then there is desperate hope. That also has an extremely negative connotation.

So there is a thing which I will call the Sliding Scale of Hope, as it not a single thing. It is more of a sliding scale that ranges from virtual certainty to utter desperation. You can raise a person’s hope, dash it on the rocks of uncertainty, raise it out of the waters and toss it around until the other person will grasp at whatever straw you throw at them.

Hoping for things that cannot possibly happen is indeed stupid.  But hoping for things that can happen is smart (good), assuming we are motivated by our optimism to act in ways that make the  thing more likely.

There are (at least) three types of hope:

… Desperate Hope is when a deep need is felt. Someone who is desperate will do almost anything to satisfy their hope (with ‘almost anything’ being in proportion to the level of desperation). This type has a negative connotation.

… Optimistic Hope however  is often positive and much more healthy.

In both of the above cases, the probability of achieving the thing can be very variable.

… Realistic Hope is based on a fair estimation of probabilities. Therefore, if something is over (say) 50% likely, then a person might realistically hope that it will happen.

IT is often the only thing that keeps us going…

With so much unraveling in our lives, hope is often the only thing that keeps us going. It is something deep inside us that tells us to look for the better times around the corner. What is its source? Some would argue that it’s just another tool in the survival kit of man kind, packed into our genetic code along with the instructions for fear and adrenalin. When, in his Essay on Man, Alexander Pope wrote “that hope springs eternal in the human breast”, he was merely poeticizing a function of blind genetic material.

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