How is your relationship with Hope these days?
Are you feeling hopeful or struggling to regain hope in life?
This past week I had a certain insight that I want to share with you.
It is regarding hope and I hope you read on.
I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe we don’t need to have a lot of hope.
And I don’t mean to discourage you here.
I know every positive thinker asks us to be hopeful. And yes, hope is a powerful thing to have.
But I see people using this word so lightly that this word has started to lose its power.
We say, “I hope things get better”
“I hope this will be successful”
“I am hopeful this will work out”
“I am hopeful I will get it this time”
To have hope is positive. It keeps us going.
But hope is dangerous too.
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When we put too much hope into something, we end up getting too attached to it.
We forget that having a lot of hope doesn’t guarantee the outcome.
So when things don’t turn out to be as we hoped they would (as it is so fairly natural in life), it crushes us more than anything.
I’ve seen many people who had a lot of hope for something and when it didn’t turn out as they hoped it would, they lost all motivation and willingness to try anything again.
Recently I heard that my far uncle who returned home after working in Dubai for many years is nowhere to be seen. He shuts himself in his room all day sleeping.
I heard that his own family don’t get to see him for days on end.
He had hopes that after returning to his home town he would be able to do something more fruitful, but when things didn’t work out as he had hoped, he seems to have given up.
This made me think about hope.
I saw my father lose hope and seep into depression and addiction.
I saw my mother lose hope many times and lose her patience, and her willingness to live a good life and be overcome with anger.
Come to think of it now, I think hope has caused more misery and suffering than anything else.
So when that happens and our hopes get crushed, what do we do?
What do we do when the one thing that we hoped would happen doesn’t?
When we see our lives haven’t turned out as we hoped it would, what do we do?
The opposite of hope is doubt.
We think if we don’t have hope, we will be filled with doubt and nothing else.
We think that without hope, we can go nowhere.
But it its not true.
You can go a lot farther even without hope.
But what you will need is curiosity.
If finding hope is difficult for you now, just be curious.
Being curious is so much easier than being hopeful but curiosity could be much stronger than hope.
Hope is simply a weaker version of having faith.
Hope most of the time is also just merely wishing.
When we hope things will get better, we hardly end up making any changes on our part.
Hope then simply acts as an excuse to not take responsibility for our lives.
Instead of hoping, I want to see what happens next.
I want to see what happens if I don’t give up
I want to see what happens if I continue giving my best each day.
If you’re feeling hopeless thinking about what happened in the past, tell yourself, “That was then, this is now”
Choosing curiosity by saying “I want to see what happens next” is so much better than saying “Nothing is going to happen” in hopelessness.
But curiosity doesn’t guarantee the outcome either.
But even though it doesn’t guarantee the outcome, curiosity will help you to take action, and that’s all that matters.
When you have curiosity you begin to take things as an experiment.
The outcome may come or may not come, but you are still ready to try and see what happens next and then accept whatever happens.
And I think that is so much better than having hope for a particular thing and being attached to it, and being devasted later if it doesn’t.
Of course, we all wish to get what we hope for, but there is no guarantee.
If at all, have hope in general, because hope is a wonderful thing to have in general.
If you have that kind of hope, that’s wonderful.
But do things for their own sake and be free from the hopefulness of the outcome.
You don’t have to care too much about hope.
Don’t let having hope or not having hope guide your life.
Instead, just keep doing your best in the present moment being curious about the future and its various possibilities of what would happen next if you only keep going.
Give yourself the gift of curiosity
The journey will be so much easier, and you will see that in the end, only good is in store.
xx
P.S This was a part from my Mindful Monday Newsletter. If you liked what you read and want to receive my updates, join below. It would be wonderful to have you ❤️
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Thank you Vishaka, this is a lovely post. I will definitely remember this concept of curiosity now. “I want to see what happens when I do this.” is really simple and empowering.