"Hope for the Best"

By: Star Trekker

(Originally published in the April 1999 issue of Perspectives)

To this day I still abide by the saying, "Hope for the best, but expect the worst." I love this saying, because it’s a ‘realistic’ form of optimism, and in this day and age, we definitely need to have this.

What makes the saying ‘realistic’ is the fact that it balances between optimism and pessimism. Optimists inherit the impression that they’re naïve are simply ignorant of reality, relying heavily on blind faith in one thing or another. But, even optimists have doubts, and in that moment of uncertainty, hope is all that can tip the balance between perseverance and surrender. Even though hope is mere expectation for an outcome, it’s that tiny drop of desire that allows someone to remain steadfast.

But relying on hope is not enough for something to happen. Hope lets you stay in the game, but it doesn’t play a direct role in attaining a successful outcome. Success comes from the utilization of your talent and abilities. Hope simply encourages you to keep trying. Hope tells you, "If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again."

It’s this continual use of your abilities that make the difference between being an optimist and a pessimist. Pessimists will, more often than not, be negative. Instead of looking for possibilities, they look at the probabilities of success, worrying about contingency plans to assure greater probability for success. Thus, they tend to expect only the worst, and will act only if there is sufficient evidence to prove that any action is warranted.

So, while optimists give all they have, and pessimists give up or give in, the ‘realistic optimist’ balances between the two. Instead of relying only on hope, or thinking endlessly about what could happen, one makes a choice to act, weighing the various possibilities with probabilities to produce a realistic outcome. Once you make a choice, you let it run its course, knowing that it won’t be a perfect outcome, but it will be as close as is realistically possible.

Overall, this isn’t such a big deal. When we put our minds to something, we will almost instinctively do this. But the important thing is to realize what it is we do to produce a positive outcome because sometimes good things happen to us and we wonder, "Why?" As much as luck can play a part in our good fortune in our lives, ultimately it’s our efforts, our desires, or frame of mind that play an even larger role. As we enter the new millennium, lets keep in mind the infinite possibilities that exist, and maintain a passionate hope that our lives, and the lives of our loved ones are filled with outcomes that encourage our spirit, and uplift our souls.

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