When I was young, I used to own cassettes of ‘folk tales’. One of my favourite stories to listen to on my little radio was Pandora’s box. If you are not familiar, this is an old Greek mythology tale about how evil entered the world. The Greek gods asked Pandora’s husband to look after a box, and the only instruction was never to open it. However, when Pandora was left alone with the box, she heard voices coming from it.
These voices were evil, demanding release to curse the world. Pandora gave in to her curiosity and let all the evils flow out onto the earth. Another voice called Pandora to be released, and although she initially refused to let it out, the voice claimed to be the voice of ‘Hope’. ‘Hope’ referred to herself as ‘the reason for living’ of humanity. This line always stuck with me as a child. Back then, I couldn’t quite describe hope, but I will always say that expression: ‘reason of living’.
Hope is a driving force in human lives.
Hope keeps us going, and it can be a strong anchor to help us stay on a specific trajectory.
Yet, we can hope for many things, but some things might not happen. At that moment, we will then meet with what I call one of life’s biggest obstacles: disappointment. Hope lies in expectations, and disappointment is the non-fulfilment of expectations.
I have come to realise that I always find myself surrounded by three types of people:
those who tell me to manage my expectations;
those who tell me to expect nothing to avoid disappointment;
and those who tell me to always hope for the best.
Should I manage my expectations?
In a way, this makes sense. After all, nothing is guaranteed in life. You can hope for many things: love, success, good health, a healthy relationship, even while working towards it. However, it might not have happened. The contrary of what you hope for might actually happen. The feeling of unhappiness that disappointment causes can be so unhinged. It can lead to discouragement, grief and depression. You will truly believe that you would have been better off if you hadn’t hoped for anything. I have experienced it firsthand. Disappointment always whispers: ‘you went a bit too ahead of yourself there, shouldn’t have believed that much’. Maybe we shouldn’t believe too much.
But can I avoid disappointment?
Unfortunately, we will all experience disappointment. It can be really small things, but also bigger disappointments:
The movie you were excited about turns out to be actually boring.
The new food you ordered at the restaurant brings instant regret.
The trendy dress doesn’t look that flattering on you as it does on your favourite influencer.
The dream job you were yearning for became a nightmare.
The relationship you thought was the one turned out to be one of your biggest heartbreaks.
One way or another, you will end up being disappointed in this life, whether you have high expectations or none.
We have no actual guarantees.
So when can I be hopeful?
One group of people that I find fascinating are those who have what I call gigantic hope; take, for example, lottery players.
The way they hope is wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is the idea of believing in something regardless of the evidence presented to you. Millions of people play the lottery every day. They believe the ‘one in a million chance’ that the numbers they chose on their tickets are the winning numbers. They are betting against crazy odds. The lottery is purely a matter of chance. But they are people who, despite constantly losing, keep buying tickets and trying to be the ‘lucky winners’. Surprisingly, there are some ‘lucky winners’ here and there. They defy the odds and manage to be the ‘one in a million’. I do admire the lottery players in a way. I tend to think that if the odds are against me, there is no point in even starting.
Thinking about it, I feel like we are playing the lottery.
Yes, there ought to be a balance.
We can have gigantic hope, whilst also realising that we have the potential to be disappointed if things don’t turn out the way we hope.
We can grieve if it happens.
We can try again in a different way, maybe.
We are all walking with scales: hurt and joy are on both sides.
The possibility of hurting is real. The possibility of joy is there, too.
We are meant to walk with the scale either way.
We are all playing a life lottery.
But sometimes there are beautiful endings when we persevere and do not give up.
We might as well be hopeful; you never know what might happen.