miestas
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Age Range: 61-65
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Post by miestas on Apr 3, 2016 13:25:16 GMT -5
It has been forcibly presented to my attention in the last few days that "hope" is an undesirable thing, useful only for prolonging suffering.
It is much better to live without it in order to handle life as it is rather than what we wish it was.
Any thoughts?
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Post by saxappeal on Apr 3, 2016 14:15:19 GMT -5
Hope ... we all need it! Maybe you ought to take a look at what's going on in the rest of your life, to make you feel good about you...
Relief can come from many places, but we have to create the change somehow someway. We have to make decisions for ourselves that may not be easy but better than living in a marriage feeling hopeless and helpless
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miestas
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Posts: 74
Age Range: 61-65
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Post by miestas on Apr 3, 2016 14:23:29 GMT -5
I have to ask why you need hope. It has never done anything for me except prolong my suffering long after the cause is lost. It kept me trying to fix my life and my relationships even though nothing I could do would change anything. I try now to live without it. It is quite liberating because I can now make decisions that seem best, and not hope for a good outcome.
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Post by TMD on Apr 3, 2016 23:48:58 GMT -5
Interesting discussion.
My grandmother once said (university project, I interviewed her): "there is little difference between hope and despair."
She's right. But I'm a bit of an optimist, usually. So I hang on to the hope for better outcomes.
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Post by Rhapsodee on Apr 4, 2016 0:56:13 GMT -5
It has been forcibly presented to my attention in the last few days that "hope" is an undesirable thing, useful only for prolonging suffering. It is much better to live without it in order to handle life as it is rather than what we wish it was. Any thoughts? In one of those trashy fantasy books, Hope claimed to be innocently trapped within Pandoras box with the seven deadly sins. It turned out that he was the most evil of the demons. Seriously, it's human nature to hope for the better. Whether that better is getting away from the ILIASM shit hole or your spouse suddenly having an epiphany and realizing you are heaven on earth. |
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Post by tamara68 on Apr 4, 2016 7:47:11 GMT -5
It has been forcibly presented to my attention in the last few days that "hope" is an undesirable thing, useful only for prolonging suffering. It is much better to live without it in order to handle life as it is rather than what we wish it was. When you are in a difficult situation that is difficult to get out, your energy will be drained. It is very likely to become depressed. According to psychologists depression is a way to 'handle' with a lot of stress, because depression slows you down which should offer the chance to recover from stress. That only works if it doesn't last too long. When the stress / difficult situation doesn't improve, depression gets worse. And the consequence is that one doesn't have enough energy / drive to actively do something to improve the situation. Hope is a 'reason' to remain inactive. Just waiting for the situation to get better. That won't happen. So in that respect hope is indeed something that prolongs suffering. At the same time, being hopeless won't do much good either. I think best is to find a way to feel confident that things will improve and that you have everything that it takes to do what is necessary to make it happen. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2016 14:14:24 GMT -5
I was going to comment, but I don't want to rain on this rained out parade.
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Post by RumRunner on Apr 6, 2016 22:27:33 GMT -5
I hope to win the lottery....... I think the odds of winning the lottery or having a healthy sexual relationship are about the same! There does come a time where hope runs out and you have to think rationally about the situation. I hope that makes sense....  |
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Moetse Tau
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Age Range: 41-45
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Post by Moetse Tau on Apr 8, 2016 20:41:15 GMT -5
I have to kind of agree on this one. I did an entire journal entry on the futility of hope. (Not sure where it is at the moment)
Basically it boiled down to this: one can hope something will change, or one can do something to make it change.
Thats it. To use RumRunners example, I can hope to win the lottery as well, but if I do not take action and go
buy a ticket, hope won't do shit.
Or to use my dads example from when I was growing up:
"Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up the fastest."
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Post by DryCreek on Apr 9, 2016 2:57:09 GMT -5
It has been forcibly presented to my attention in the last few days that "hope" is an undesirable thing, useful only for prolonging suffering. It is much better to live without it in order to handle life as it is rather than what we wish it was. Any thoughts? I'm playing the semantics card... Having hope is not the same as being hopeful. Being hopeful is wishing things will be better. Being an ostrich, head-in-the-sand, not taking action, but believing that things will get better "just because". Being hopeful will trap you in a bad situation, tolerating one day at a time. Having hope is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel; having confidence that the current state is only temporary; that the journey may be harsh, but the goal is attainable. Having hope is about being inspired to take action. Cheers, DC |
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Post by petrushka on Apr 13, 2016 8:55:07 GMT -5
What's the difference between a nun in church, and a nun in the bath?
The nun in church has hope in her soul ....
Now that we have that out of the way, I think that in a bad relationship, in a bad situation, hope can be the thing that has us running head first into a brick wall, again and again, in the hope that something, some day, somehow, will get better. It HAS to, no? If we keep trying hard enough? Long enough?
Hope that things would get better kept me running in my little hamster-wheel for a long time. Things did not get better. I got more and more confused, the pain and disappointment grew and grew.
Letting go of that kind of hope (no need to insert that famous quote ascribed to Einstein about insanity being trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome) - letting go of that hope is the first step to getting a clear eyed view of what is really going on. Once the blood from bashing your head against the wall has run out of your eyes and is no longer clouding your vision.
Seeing clearly WHAT IS, rather than what we were hoping things should be is the first step. We all cloud our perception with hope of what might happen, what might be possible. And often the hope we infuse our perception with does not do us a great service. First and foremost the hope that we can change the other person, or that they will see our true value and love us better, or that they will recognize that since we try to take care of their needs and wants they will come to the resolution that they need to do likewise. And they fucking WON'T. Especially if they have 'issues'. Or if they are so self-absorbed, that ... etc etc.
***
There is a place for hope. Hope that if we carry on, one day some happiness may show up. Hope that things can be improved. Hope that there will be some experiences in the future that will make it all worth while. If it weren't for that hope, I would've driven my car over a cliff decades ago.
But one has to watch the bugger, because it can make us do such stupid, futile things if we don't keep our eyes peeled.
Letting go of the hope that that other person in our life will ever be the person we'd like them to be, will ever be bending to our will and secret expectations, that is the first step to re-arranging our own thinking rather than re-arranging our mate.
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Post by petrushka on Apr 13, 2016 9:02:34 GMT -5
Incidentally I have issues with that supposed definition of insanity. Yes, it is insane to behave like that, it is not rational. Futile. But Insanity is something much more scary, much more disturbing, much more to be feared. When you can't ever believe that what you see, hear, smell, feel is REAL and happening on the same planet that is inhabited by all those people around you, that what you perceive is actually grounded in the real world, when you never know what other people mean when they say something to you, that is insanity - controlled insanity, and a very very awful and frightening place to be. Uncontrolled insanity is when you're not aware of that, and you believe everything, every voice that whispers in your ears ...
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Post by samedeepwater on Apr 27, 2016 7:00:56 GMT -5
Pessimists are never disappointed, only pleasantly surprised. But, to say I have no hope would not be entirely correct either. If there wasn't a crumb of hope on the floor, I never would have left my marriage in the first place. But, I also used to confuse hopes with wishes. I spent most of my life wishing my life was different. During those times I chose to feel anything at all. Long about the time my journey out of my sexless marriage became a journey to find myself, I realized that hopes and wishes often times equal inaction. For most of my life, I let life have it's way with me. The hardest lesson I had to learn was that I needed to get out of the passenger seat.
Do I have hope now? Not sure, but now that I'm behind the wheel I do look forward to where I decide I will go today. I'm still basically a one day at a time guy, but you get enough good days behind you and start to think tomorrow may be ok too.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 16:08:26 GMT -5
...I realized that hopes and wishes often times equal inaction... Exactly! Hope, but then plan! And if plan A, doesn't work, have a plan B ready... That's what I believe. Turn wishful thinking, into willful. Just so you don't have to go too far down the alphabet! |
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Post by darktippedrose on Apr 27, 2016 18:17:15 GMT -5
I'm a realist. Most people say I'm a pessimist lol.
hoping for something unrealistic as my husband changing me, or hip giving me reset sex for him to give me hope and then to stomp on it. that kind is bad.
I still have hope. Just not for him. I have hope for MYSELF. put yourself first instead of everyone but you.
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