I know... it's a lot easier to talk about this stuff than to actually live consciously every day...


I'm basically the same way in that I hope for a better future, but I can see how thinking too much in this way could actually create an obstactle to happiness...


here is a short chapter from the book Peace is Every Step, by Thich Nhat Hanh, which resonates a lot for me...


Hope as an Obstacle

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tommorow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us - to make some hardship lighter. When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic. Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment. We use hope to think that something better will happen in the future, that we will arive at peace, or the Kingdom of God. Hope becomes a kind of obstacle. If you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover the joy that is already here.

Enlightenment, peace, and joy will not be granted by someone else. The well is within us, and if we dig deeply in the present moment, the water will spring forth. We must go back to the present moment in order to be really alive... Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment. Many religions are based on the notion of hope, and this teaching about refraining from hope may create a strong reaction. But the shock can bring about something important. I do not mean that you should not have hope, but that hope is not enough. Hope can create an obstacle for you, and if you dwell in the energy of hope, you will not bring yourself back entirely into the present moment. If you re-channel those energies into what is going on in the present moment, you will be able to make a breakthrough and discover joy and peace right in the present moment, inside of yourself and all around you.

A.J. Muste, the mid-twentieth century leader of the the peace movement in America who inspired millions of people, said, "There is no way to peace, peace is the way." This means that we can realize peace right in the present moment with out look, our smile, our words, and our actions. Peace work is not a means. Each step we make should be joy. Each step we make should be happiness. If we are determined, we can do it. We don't need the future. We cam smile and relax. Everything we want is right here in the present moment.

Expect the best- it's important for shaping a positive attitude- but have a back-up plan for the worst. Then you're sorted however the cookie crumbles

For me, hope is different to expectation... hope is a longing, which makes it a little pathetic and less empowering. This is why I think expectation is better than hope. You don't have to live in denial- it's possible to expect that everything will probably go to plan.

I think I hear what you're saying, ohayoco... sounds kind of manifesting positive intention with an open mind...

I think that hope can be seen as being a feeling of longing projected into the future, which can cause unhappiness in the present because of the difference in the current reality and the hoped for dream... yet, if hope can be translated into desire, and desire into intention, then the dream can be manifested in reality

I could see how hope could become a vortex of thought and thus could hinder your motivation and ability to make rational decisions during times when serious changes need to be manifested.

I went to see Thich Nhat Hanh in Berkeley in the '90s. When I got there the auditorium was sold out. They were setting up speakers outside for all the people that couldn't get in. There was a crowd of a couple of hundred people outside. I made myself comfortable in a spot in the crowd and after a while I noticed a guy on a bicycle riding his bike through the crowd. The guy rode his bike through the crowd and straight up to me and stopped. He looked at me and said "You want a ticket?". I said "Yeah!". He handed me a ticket and rode off on his bike. I call it my miracle ticket. I've carried it in my wallet ever since.

I see that he is saying that the inherent problem with hope is that it diverts your attention to the future. Life is happening at now time. If you spend your life focused on the future you may come to realize that your life slipped by while your attention was focused elsewhere.

Hope is like the forest that produces magical powers to live forever. But to get there you have to venture through a thorn field 10 miles wide which is infested with 50kg frogs that spit napalm and killer hornets with stingers the size of pool cues, and in the process you'll most probably definitely die. But all along you lived in a forest that solely composed of dmt containing plants, you obsessed about getting to this other place and in the process not appreciating and working on dmt extractions that were right in front of you ready to be done. You planned for days, months, years to get to this other place that will bring everything, and in that time you could of done like 50 extractions. Hope is there, but never coming. Today is the day and the only time.

I agree with all the above... wow!