Hope as a safe blanket against action
Consider the notion that hope is a safe blanket against action. A mechanism of fear in disguise, that you often employ to soothe yourself and feel safer amidst the uncertain surrounding environment and circumstances.
When you hope for something, you may delay action on that thing. Action creates uncertainty and a shower of cold water into reality. It eradicates hope and conceptual words preventing you from confronting what is in front of you. You become naked to reality and shift away from the safe blanket of hope.
There remain uncontrollable elements that will influence the outcome of your choices and actions, and you will know that those will not—cannot—be influenced by hope.
Many of us hope for continuous health, greater wealth, and entering into that university or circle of powerful individuals. And that hope remains a cloud in the unknown; a seeming mirage in the vast array of possibilities and events unfolding around us.
Without an objective, a strategy, and specific tactics for taking action on your hopes, they remain unfathomable dreams you may use to feel safe while still signaling your ambition and drive to better your situation so that you don’t feel a sense of emptiness in your daily experience.
Hope can serve you well when you accept it as such a mechanism of safety. It won’t act in your favor when you exist in the world through hope and nothing else that provides you a direction to pursue with conviction and humility.
On the other hand, a baseline of hope is necessary to carry on living satisfactorily. Because without any hope, you wouldn’t wake up in the morning to pursue any activity or have any generative drive left in your metaphorical tank. If you are here, you believe that you can improve your situation and that the world won’t crumble beneath your feet as you wake up tomorrow. You fundamentally believe that things are okay, and you are okay.
We can call this a baseline optimism that is necessary for conducting a well-functioning daily existence. Optimism fosters action and it differs from hope for this characteristic.
“The problem is not to find the answer, it's to face the answer.”
— Terence McKenna
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