This is #a response #to the one-word prompt “Glimmer” by “the Daily Post.”
How important is it to #have “#hope” in tough situations? Is it actually encouraging and helpful or is it really damaging in the long one? These are questions that people have struggled with forever. On the one hand, “hope” does seem to allow us to get through our challenges in life by focusing our attention less on the bad situation/possible outcomes and more on something positive that gives us reason to “push on.”
Yet “hope” can indeed be damaging if those positive outcomes do not materialize. We then will “lose hope” and become even more demoralized. Although I would say that the danger here lies not so much in “hope” but in reality “false hope.” Wheres “hope” can give us something to hang onto that encourages us to “fight on” despite how bad the situation may appear; it never does so by “magically changing” the situation we may be facing, only how we perceive it.
Before getting “hope” we already had the “tools” and ability to “get out” but our “despair” prevented us from seeing that. With “false hope” we are given something positive to hold onto, but when we really don’t have the ability to make things better. So the problem with “hope” is not that there are times when we can get “too much” #of it, but that we can confuse “false hope” for “real hope.”
To have real hope in our lives, at our “deepest lows” is to the have the “tools” needed to “get out” at our disposal and the “vision, courage, and drive” to make use of those tools. “Hope does not give us anything new that we don’t already have, merely a reason for us to make better our situation.
So what are your thoughts and viewpoints on this subject? Please do share, all are welcomed and wanted.