Is Hope the most dangerous drug of the mind?

Is Hope the most dangerous drug of the mind?

There is a German proverb: “Hope dies last” and when we use hope to stay strong, when we let it guide us through the challenges of life, when we use it to rise above what we thought was possible, than hope is the fuel our motivation needs.

Although, hope can be a very dark, destructive force: namely when, we use hope to escape the present, to deny the facts. We then project an ideal state of being into the near future and hope that the present will change towards our projection while refusing to accept our present.

We wait – for a raise, for a better job, to win the lottery, to find our soul mate… we wait for people to change or better circumstances, for Christmas, for warmer or cooler weather… the list is endless.

Eckart Tolle describes this state of waiting as follows:

“Waiting is a state of mind. Generally meaning, that you want the future; you do not want the present. You do not want, what you have, you want, what you don’t have. With waiting of any kind you subconsciously produce a conflict between here and now, where you don’t want to be and your projected future, where you want to be. This reduces the quality of your life tremendously, since you lose the present."

When we abuse hope to reject our life, to negate “now” and to project all our wishes and dreams into a “better” future, than hope becomes a dangerous drug. A terrible hang over is more than certain, namely when this hope is disappointed on a daily reoccurring basis, since no new better job is offered to us, no Mr. or Ms. Right is stumbling into our live, no raise, no bonus no nothing from our beloved boss and so on…

Hope in its pure meaning belongs to trust. Trust in yourself, trust in your life, in the path you are on and trust, that everything you need to do whatever needs to be done is right here, right at this point in time, right where you are at the moment. Trust, that life is to be lived in the moment, not yesterday or tomorrow but right now. Hope that is bound to expectation is only one step from the dark path into waiting. In German the word for expectation contains the word for waiting. When you expect something you subconsciously or consciously wait for it to happen. That is perfectly fine when we talk about realistic goals and positive expectation. But when hope and expectation get you into a state of waiting in powerless devotion to your idea of what will be your salvation or who or what will be the fulfillment of your dreams, than you have doomed yourself to mere existence rather than living your life. You negate your life and wait to live it at a later, supposedly “better” point in time. 

Newsflash: this allegedly better life will never happen if you don’t cherish what you have and do what needs to be done, now, not tomorrow!

If you focus now and do what needs to be done, right in this moment without knowing if the outcome will be positive or meeting your expectation, when you live in the moment, accept what you have and do your best, than hope in its purest meaning is your motivation and the fuel for your willpower. Not knowing if you succeed but trusting in yourself and your life, your ability and strength, hoping for the best, knowing what you do right now is perfect for the moment, in this scenario hope become a very powerful blessing. Without hope you would not attempt. With hope free of expectation you will attempt, you will take risks and you will most likely indeed be rewarded.

Salvation does not follow the fulfillment of our wishes or dreams. Salvation, inner peace, happiness and bliss happen in the present, “now”, in the moment; the moment you live your life and stop seeking your faults in the past or your luck in the future while rejecting the present.

(c) Britta Goetz - Tiphareth-Tarot & Astro