“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” – Albert Einstein
“Hope never abandons you; you abandon it” – George Weinberg
“Hope is the dream of a soul awake.” – French proverb
We’ve all been exposed to the idea that “having hope” is the way to living a positive life. We’re told that when things don’t seem to be going our way, we should do our best to maintain a positive attitude and to always “hope” for a better future. Well-meaning people tell us that it’s always darkest before the dawn…that the pot of gold is just over the next hill, and all we need to do is to follow our hearts to the end of the rainbow. Surely, if we only have faith and do our best, all of our dreams will come true.
I don’t think so.
There are a few problems with this modus. The first is that just “hoping” that things will turn out well is extremely disempowering. If something that you’re doing (or not doing) isn’t working, it just doesn’t make sense to keep doing it! This is something that nearly everyone would agree with. However, seeing it in oneself is apparently fairly difficult, judging by the proportion of people who continue to bitch and moan about their lives while continuing to always remain within their comfort zones. They’re sure that if only they stick with it a few more weeks or months or years, things will turn around for them. They have “hope”. They may even spend a lot of time coming up with ideas, plans, blueprints for new ways of doing things – but these plans remain theoretical because of fear, ennui and laziness. And so it goes. Even if they remain emotionally positive about the future and continue to use the energy of hope to bolster their frequency, nothing changes because they hope that things will someday be different – and that’s all they do.
The second (and even more important) thing that actually makes the concept of “hope” an inhibitive (if not actually destructive) force is that hope always, by definition, has to do with the future.
In case no one had told you: the future doesn’t exist (neither does the past, but that’s for another post). The only thing you have is the present – your present. The only thing you can directly affect and know for sure is the right-now. When you hold an object in your hand, you’re holding it now…a millisecond later, you’re holding it in a different “now”. Thus your perception of the present is a rolling view…a slide show of instants just passed. It’s a stop-motion animation, rather than a smooth flow of events. Indeed, if we continue to parse units of time…splitting seconds into nanoseconds on down to milli-nanoseconds and so forth…we would go mad because we would find that time doesn’t exist. But we don’t want to go mad before we finish reading this post, and so…
When you have “hope” that a change will occur sometime in the future, you are projecting that change into a place that doesn’t exist! Energetically, it’s exactly like the old carrot on a stick. You might have a very clear vision of what it is that you want (which is, frankly, a stone-cold necessity in the manifestation process). But that pretty vision-board that you’ve constructed is only a picture. Like the carrot on the stick, the faster you run toward it the faster it stays ahead of you…because after all, it’s in the future because you’re constantly “hoping” it will come true. The stick keeps it out of reach, no matter how clearly you can see it before you. This is the ultimate frustration. Whether you’re on the treadmill of your comfort zone or running down the back alleys chasing that golden carrot, as long as you are “hoping” your dream will remain out of reach.
So, what’s the alternative? Appreciation. “Gratitude” is often touted as the way to go in order to allow manifestation of desire. However, gratitude implies that something has been given to one, and that one should be grateful to God or the Universe or our rich Auntie for the gift – in other words, some outside force has deigned to present us with something cool because we “deserved it” or just for kicks. On the other hand, the energy of appreciation is more along the lines of acknowledging the good that we have, as divine Creators of our own lives, caused to exist. Remember taking the dreaded “art appreciation” class back in high school? The idea was not that we were necessarily grateful to the artists for having painted their masterpieces; rather, we were taught to appreciate the beauty and meaning of the artwork, and the skills and talent it took to produce it. Appreciation.
Furthermore, the appreciation needs to be in the present. We’ve already shown how “hope” always keeps what we want in the future (which doesn’t exist). Even appreciation, if we focus on past blessings, is a non-starter. It’s fine to have pleasant memories of childhood, years past, or even of a few hours ago before we knew our spouse was going to leave us or our house had burned to the ground. But that’s not now. Now is now, and it’s all we have.
In summary: in order to have what you want to manifest (which means to “cause to be revealed”, not “create”… because it already exists), you of course need to first have a clear idea of what it is. You then need to decide how having it would make you feel on an emotional level, and what thoughts it would cause you to have. Once that’s done, all that’s left is to experience those thoughts and emotions in the present, and appreciate the results right now. The rest of the process is left to the Universe (which is an extension of your Divine power). Our feeble mental powers can’t possibly interpolate or extrapolate that process – indeed, if we are experiencing the appreciation as joy or happiness or satisfaction, the physical result might be something other than what we had originally envisioned. However it’s guaranteed to be at least as good or better, as long as we’ve been consistent with the energetic signature we’ve been sending out into the ether.
Imagine it. Refine it. Examine it, decide upon the energetic goal – and then experience that goal in the present. Take the carrot off the stick and hold it in your hand – you have it already.
As usual, Michael, I quite like your thoughts – interesting point of view.
I do not view “Hope” as a negative but am in agreement with your train of thought. Perhaps, although I have never thought to do this, the issue here is varying gradations of Hope … or, perhaps, it has to do with the intent behind the hope.
The following is a reply to a friend’s posting this morning:
Note to the novice from the dusty desk of an old fart:
Energy is to be found all around us and everywhere we look because, well … quite simply – everything (including nothing) is energy!
Within a dualistic paradigm (which is what we live in), energy “comes in” three forms – Positive, Negative and Neutral or static … not to be confused with good and evil!
The act of giving is a neutral – HOWEVER … the intent behind the act of giving is what we must look at here because it is this which makes giving “positive” … or, believe it or not , “Negative”.
To offer a gift freely, out of Love, with Compassion, genuine desire to help, etc – this is a positive act and falls under the category of Altruism – a traditional virtue that used to be found in many cultures (still there, but fading under the light of consumerism, overly inflated egos and greed).
To offer a gift with the thought of getting one back is a negative act. Yes, The Universe will return gift for gift and, sometimes, will return more that you think you give … like multiply x 10!
HOWEVER! … read on …
Logic would tell you to work this phenomenon as a formula or recipe: decide what you want and work the formula backwards to receive it … an example of this sort of thinking would be: I want $100:00 … so if I give $10.00 to that poor guy over there then The Universe will give me $100.00 tomorrow!
This would be a “negative act” and would only serve to bring more negative energy into your life.
The act of giving must be done with no strings attached and with a genuine feeling of love for a fellow being. This would now be a “positive act” and will bring positive energy into your life.
Perhaps, “Hope” is similar – it is all about intent. If I hope the Universe will drop one Million dollars in my lap because I want to but that new flashy car, house, etc … this might not work out very well … firstly, this is a negative and will return negative in return … secondly, we would be much better serving ourselves by getting off our butts and going to work … earning the Mil and then deciding what to do with it.
If we hope for help for starving people or those torn apart by war … this is a positive. It may cost much more than the Mil and the cash may not cross our palms but it will happen in one way or another.
Yes, we exist in “Here and Now” but follow along …
“Time” does not exist – which is why, as you say, yesterday and tomorrow do not exist. “Time” is a human concept created to explain progression of events – nothing more.
All events occur simultaneously and are subject to the laws of an ever expanding Universe / Consciousness.
When you toss a pebble into a pond, there are concentric ripples that expand out from the point of impact … the same principle applies to thought.
A thought send ripples “forward” and “backward” from our position within experience … this is how we create our tomorrows. (there is much, much more to this but, in essence – that is the crux of it)
Interestingly and in a paradoxical way, the same applies to the past – would not think that would you? … but … all the same … it does … and by the same principle.
So, thought is one of the most powerful “things” … hope is a form of thought … Thought directs the energy of Chaos from static (neutral) force into directional (positive or negative) force … within Dualistic paradigm. This force, is then the cause of Positive and Negative energies and is then buffeted about by the effect of these same energies.
Yes, one could go quite mad by spending too much time on this … but, it is good to have some rudimentary understanding of it.