Hope

In Lithuania, we have this saying (roughly translated and possibly incorrectly gramatised*): hope is the mother of the fools. Also, we have this funny addition to that saying: and mothers never leave their children**.

So basically it means that foolish are those who hope, however those who hope, will continue to have hope.

I was thinking today, is it good, or is it bad? Since in the grand scheme of things nothing is good or bad I think it is more important to understand when hope is good and when hope is bad?

And here are my brainchildren.

Hope is GOOD when:

• we use to continue to do what we like, even though there may be no immediate results (i.e. we are not getting rich immediately or we haven't changed the world yet)

• we are in a bad situation and we hope that this is not all there can be

• we are in a bad situation and we hope that it won't last forever

• we do something good, we receive no gratitude but we hope that somehow it added to overall goodness in the world

• when we are learning something which we might be a bit crappy at but we hope that with training/practice that will improve

• when we start exercising and a month later we still don't see amazing transformation (like we saw on Instagram) but we hope if we continue exercising this is something that will overall improve our well-being

• the list goes on - we hope that good things will happen and better things will continue to happen in the future

You get the idea. Hope is good when it helps us to do something good for us (or other people, or the world in general) and overall doesn't cause any additional suffering or harm.

Hope is BAD when:

• we hope that the situation will change even though nobody (including ourselves) is doing anything about it

• we stay in situation that is bad for us, harmful and we hope that it will somehow go away one day

• we hope that everybody around us understands how wrong they were and how nothing was our fault

• we hope that the person who we are in a relationship will change suddenly and we'll become happy couple heading for happily ever after

• we keep on doing the same thing hoping to have different results next time (aka "definition of insanity" by Einstein :D)

• we hope that the world will somehow clear itself without us taking part in it (aka "I don't create any emission and live carbon neutral")

• we hope that all of our problems one day disappear as if by magic and we'll never need to deal with anything unwanted again. Like EVER.***

You get the picture on this lot as well: hope is NOT good when we use it as an excuse not to do anything or keep ourselves stuck in the situation which is harmful to us (and others) hoping that things will somehow change or get better.

Personally, I think that THE BEST COMBINATION EVER is to use BOTH: have hope for things to improve AND also DO something about it. Because WHEN we do something about it, the chance is much better than something, in fact, will change.

Why?

Because we have changed the ingredients in the situation. You change ingredients and you get a different pie. You might not get completely different pie, but the flavor, the texture, the feel will be somewhat different. The more we do that, the more change we cause and the more HOPE we can have to end up with something fantastically wonderful in the end.

So I hope that this was somewhat helpful for some of you (it was for me!!!) and please join me in the campaign "Using hope with action".

Have a good evening (and day, and night and morning), you wonderful human being!

<3

Ruta

* Yes - I know that "gramatised" is not a real word (or at least it wasn't, until today :D )

** Yes, I know that is not technically correct but we are talking in fables here

*** the "good" and "bad" lists are not exhaustive. I would not have a claim or would ever ATTEMPT to create such lists, examples provided are purely for illustratory reasons for the right audience to get the FEEL of using hope in different situations (I hope you are the RIGHT audience)****

**** the example above is an example of using both action and hope (aka my "Using hope with action" campaign): I clarify myself so that I wouldn't be misunderstood yet I hope that I didn't really need to do it as I the audience reading this is a right fit! :D:D:D

Bonus points for you if you get my sense of humor. ;)