Hope Creates Fear: The Case Against Hope
When I was a kid, my cousin would tell me that he wouldn't be friends with me to tease me. I would run to my mom and cry, "X said that we wouldn't be friends anymore."
In high school, I would be disappointed in myself when I didn't get a perfect score in math. One time, I broke my ballpen because I was angry that I made a few mistakes. Crazy, I know. How can my mind be so fucked up that I would put that burden on myself?
My parents never gave me that burden. I put it on myself. I heard people tell me I'm smart and I believed them. I wanted to live up to their hopes for me.
Their hopes were my hopes.
In many ways, I'm still that kid. Still hoping for approval. Fearing that people will reject me, will see through the facade, that I'm still fucked after all this time.
I hope:
- to be respected
- to be accepted
- to be successful
- to be a good person
- to be attractive
- to be enough
- to be seen as 'happy'
Hope creates Fear
Every time you feared speaking in public, it's because you were hoping for a good reaction. Fear of being judged? You're hoping to be accepted. Fear of wasting time? You're hoping to be productive.
Hope creates fear. I'm talking about hope and not expectation. It's that part of you that clings to the possibility of a better reality. As I've said before, hope is emotional gambling. You're giving up your power. You're begging reality to be a certain way. Instead of simply having goals, you add emotional baggage into the equation.
Hope creates a proportional amount of fear.
Hope:
- Low: Wish
- Medium: Want
- High: Need
Fear:
- Low: Disappointment
- Medium: Anxiety
- High: Insecurity
The words might be different for you, but the reality stays the same. Each hope you have, you pay for in fear. The more fear you experience, the less productive and effective you become.
How to Remove Fear
From the moment of birth, hope was placed into you by your genetics and by your environment. Family members, friends, social media, and a biology that optimizes for status-seeking over peace of mind. The cards are stacked against you and no one will save you except yourself. If you don't do anything, a life of constant anxiety awaits you.
Removing fear completely is not an option because your biology makes you hardwired to hope for certain things: food, sex, shelter, and most damningly, status. So are you condemned to a life of fear? Yes and no.
Focusing on fear, emotionally through "embodied awareness", and intellectually, through "hope analysis", removes its power over you. Some fears can be removed completely. Other fears are there to stay for as long as you live. The fear will be there, but the goal should be to remove the hope of removing fear.
When you stop fearing fear itself, you become fearless.