Hope and Other Elusive Things

March 22nd 2019

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“Hold onto hope if you got it. Don’t let it go for nobody. They say that dreaming is free, I wouldn’t care what it cost me.” –26 by Paramore

I feel like hope eludes me…or perhaps I elude it. I find hope to be intimidating. When I am hopeful, I feel as though I am setting myself up for disappointment before I have any reason to feel as such. I find that hope leads to anxiety. I often don’t tell people about the things I am hopeful about in case they fall through. I am afraid I will look like an idiot who got excited over nothing.

And, because of that, I lack hope.

When confronted with a good thing, I often either hold on too tight or tell myself it doesn’t matter as a means of reaching some emotional equilibrium. I either try too hard to keep something going or I completely push it to the back of my mind as means of cushioning the impact if something goes wrong. I either “did everything I could” or “didn’t really care to begin with”. I put those things in quotes because, no matter what, I always feel that same twinge of disappointment and embarrassment every time I have the littlest shred of hope and get let down.

I am working on my relationship with hope though. I am letting it in little by little. I am trying to take out the word “if” from my vocabulary regarding the unknown. I am starting to speak like I have the things I want, in the hopes that the universe will hear me and respond accordingly.

I find that a lot of what we experience in life correlates to our expectations. I’m not saying everything goes as well or as poorly a we expect them to, but I do feel like attitude plays a large role in whether or not things enter your life.

I am going to use dating as an example. To protect myself, I would always say “If I go on a date with _______” even after scheduling a date. Or telling myself they are probably gonna ghost or cancel and make it a joke to myself to hide the disappointment that would cause me.

This also sort of applies to jobs. I go into every job applications with the mindset that I probably won’t hear back so I am not surprised when I don’t. It is a messed up way of approaching things and I sort of feel like it has taken the passion out of job hunting and turned it into a hopeless chore.

I think my fear of hope (and possibility your fear as well, if you can relate) has largely to do with the concept of self-worth. I tell myself I am not worthy of things I am hopeful about and thus, I let them pass me by or project so much anxiety onto them that they leave. That is why I am changing my behavior.

Now, if feeling hopeful makes me feel anxious, I reach out to a friend and have them tell me I’m crazy. I let my mom tell me that I should just enjoy things while I have them and try my best. I get a little reassurance from those I care about so I become less tempted to fuck things up on purpose just to avoid being blind-sided.

So I guess what I am trying to say is, being hopeful isn’t as scary as it seems if you have the right people reminding you that things will be okay no matter what. Not everything you hope for works out, but that is just the Universe’s way of telling you that there are better things on their way.

Jess~