Hope for the Best

But prepare for the worst

Its called realism.

I’ve always found myself in countless numbers of awkward and difficult situations I’d hoped would get better with time. From hoping that guy would suddenly begin to appreciate me to hoping my friends would realize how much they hurt me and apologize, that the economy of my country would be alleviated from its depreciating mess hence, preventing her citizens from seeing the need to flee, that the current organization I work or worked for would show a little compassion with recognizing certain cogent challenges their employees face and cut them some slack and the list goes on..

Here’s the thing about HOPE

It’s a beautiful virtue to have. No doubt. It’s the positive anticipation everyone has once in a while that everything’s going to be alright even when it may not seem so. It’s the feeling you get, that convinces you to remain calm with the assurance that things will fall into perspective/or place even when clearly, the opposite seems to be the case. Hope, according to the Google result defines as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen” an aspiration or aim/ daydream.

One not so good thing with Hope is the uncertainty involved. Hoping could result in the actual expectations coming to fruition, or not. The devastating aspect of it is having to hang on to something which is not certain to come true hence, in denial, when an alternative route could have been explored for better chances of it happening. On this note, Hope has its advantages as well as disadvantages and being mindful of the latter will enable you to become aware when you are swayed with “only hoping and not achieving” thus realism.

Hope is a good characteristic/virtue to imbibe but realism will prevent you from being stuck and in denial

As initially stated, hope can serve as a hidden driving force to want to be engaged in something which in the first place, may appear obscure or totally fruitless but, it’s not always sustainable and reliable on its own to derive the expected outcome. This is the part people don’t usually recognize thus causing them to be stuck with being in denial.

As much as Hope gives an inkling of optimism that something will turn out as expected, it is mindfully healthy to acknowledge when to take a few steps back and be realistic about the current situation. One of the ways to do so is to brutally evaluate the current situation you are facing. Questions like why am I in this situation, what am I hoping to achieve? What is currently hindering me from achieving this, what could possibly hinder me from achieving this and what are my back up plans peradventure, I don’t achieve the expected result at the stipulated time too?.

Hope works in several ways depending on the situation

If you happened to be in an abusive relationship (verbal, emotional or physical), and you endure it with the hope that someday, your partner/ or significant other or whoever the abuser will turn a new leaf, you are in a destructive in denial because chances are, that will less likely be the case. On another note, if you get turned down from a job after applying and you hope still, that someday you will get it with consistent dedication and re-applying, coupled with your educational background (dependent on the what type of job), then be rest assured the likelihood of your hopes and actually achieving it is high — although with no guarantee if it will be in the desired or specific job field or company. That’s the kind of Hope you need.

This is me saying that Hope functions as a type of test which is sensitive but not specific. Hope can get you started on something and somewhat provide the momentum to deal with whatever comes with it (sensitivity) but it’s usually indeterminate of whether or not, the expected outcome will be gotten in a specific planned fashion. This should encourage you to be open-minded whilst hoping for something to work out and simultaneously, understand where Hope works the best than not.

When you hope more with less action and it flops, it hurts more

When the desirable becomes unavailable, turn the available to desirable — Practicality

Imagine if you were more realistic or rational with coming to terms with your broken relationship, lost job, dead dog or whatever substitute you anticipated would happen the “normal” way but didn’t. Imagine also the peace of mind when you finally accepted what was bound to occur. This, of course, decreases the anxiety, hurt/or disappointment associated with hanging on or having lingering sentiments in anticipation of achieving the “unavailable” desirable results.

In order to avert this, it’s best to match the desired job role/descriptions with your skills before applying for it, in which case, you can now Hope to get it — not the other way round. You can match your personal values ahead of time with what you observe in your current partner or potential partner to check if it’s something that works or will work for you respectively. You can determine your capability and see if it matches with the newly reformed operations at your current workplace — or not, really.

But beware that misidentification about who you are, your preferences with regards to what you like and not, or to put it in a better term, lack of self-awareness, will continue to make you Hope for something which will not come to fruition thus, leaving you utterly disappointed hence, to be forewarned

Is to be forearmed; Hope can leave you stuck in fool’s paradise thus prevent you from preparing for the worse

As aforementioned, Hope sometimes leaves you unrealistic when you could’ve rationalized and embraced “what is it” and begin on time to do something to avert any bad consequences or manage it — as opposed to hoping it will all go away and be better — except it will not.

Take for instance, someone who has been diagnosed to have anxiety disorder attempting to Hope and pray it out when they could hope less, accept what the reality is and seek for more hands-on psychotherapy or medications “in conjunction” with prayers to fight it and feel better — then HOPE afterward that it all works out — Moral cowardice is a term used to define the former by Simon Critcheley from Abandon (Nearly) All Hope.

This is also in accordance with what Michael Schreiner said, an author of the book-The problem with Hope. It states thus “it’s easy to confuse the idea of mindful acceptance with unhealthy states of feeling like giving up, complacency, or settling for less.

Hope can leave you hopeless, if “care” is not taken

Hope works like a muse, a trigger to a peaceful state of mind that everything will go as anticipated but when you continuously fail in achieving the desirable because of how clingy and reliant yet, unrealistically you Hope, this can leave you feeling hopeless as opposed to if you really dissected the situation beforehand or better still, when you found yourself in it.

Wouldn’t it be better to be hopeful and strive to achieve your results with a more realistic approach than to blindly delve into anything with “hopes” only, that everything turns out well and then you are left stuck with its direct opposite and forced into a deep state of despair instead? This state of hopelessness in turn, usually occurs as a result of constant paranoia that everything else will fail similarly.

What am I trying to say

In general, hope is a virtue to inculcate and exhibit behaviorally. It helps the mind to feel a sense of safety/security that things will go well or as planned thus, giving the peace/or ease of mind. However, realizing when to sincerely rehearse an event before getting into it or brutally weighing your current situation to determine what’s working or not, is realism. This will save you from a ton of hurt and feeling of perpetual paranoia hence, hopelessness — when eventually things don’t play out the way you’d HOPED.

What is it going to be?