Hope attempts to prove we’re powerless.

We say things like…

-I am not the one in charge here, so there is really nothing I can do.

-I believe my fate is in God’s hands.

-They won’t let me…(government, rich people, or anyone else who appears to have more power)

-What is the use of trying? The odds are clearly stacked against me.

These are nothing more than assumptions. Assumptions are characterized by the habit of taking for granted that something is true when it is not. Questions you must ask are, “Is my assumption true or false? What proof or evidence do I have about my assumption? “

What’s more stupid than a stupid question? The answer is an incorrect assumption.

Think of this in terms of your return on investment. In business we focus heavily on the ROI (return on investment), but we forget to use that same concept throughout the rest of our lives. When we fail to do what we want because of an assumption, we are forgetting about the concept of ROI. What would be the ROI for doing it anyway, even if someone somewhere holds the assumption that it is impossible? If all any of us ever did was follow our assumptions, we would still be afraid of falling off the edge of the earth.

Is it wrong to hope or have expectations? Absolutely not. However, the tipping point where hope turns into defeat is when hope keeps us from doing what we can do in the moment.

From Dr. Robert Anthony newsletter

Hope can be a form of scarcity. There are those who live in hope and those who produce hope. What does it mean to be a producer of hope? People who produce hope are creators. People who live in hope are those who just wish and wait for things to change.

Hope is essential because without it life would be a daunting task. However, there is a dark side to hope that very few people talk about. The difference is in what we do or don’t do with hope.

For most people, hope is characterized by waiting for other people or events to change so that we can be happy or get what we want. In this respect, hope is like the dark side of positive thinking.
Positive thinking rarely brings about change because it is a passive activity. Hope then becomes a waiting game.

What people fail to understand is that hope is only a small part of the equation for success. Without action, hope leaves you in a negative reinforcing cycle of expectations, disappointment and
stagnation.

Hope is the longing and wishing for things we think we don’t have. However, the energy we put into wishing and waiting actually prevents us from receiving what we want.

Hope can be a prison. It is a conditioned belief that there is nothing we can do but sit back and “hope for the best”. The dictionary defines hope as “the desire for something to happen while expecting or being confident that it will come true”. This is nothing more than a waiting game.

Many people create a dream and then wait for a sign from heaven that they are on the right track. When the sign fails to come, they give up and go off onto some new adventure, again waiting for a sign that this is finally “it”.

We are conditioned to wait. We wait for the bus, we wait in line at the grocery store and the bank. In school we raised our hands and waited to be called upon, etc. We wait until our parents, teachers or some other adult tells us that it’s okay to do what we want to do.

People that are into hope feel powerless. Powerlessness is a conditioned pattern. Why is it that we can read about people who overcame great odds to accomplish some fantastic feat, but we can’t manage to get to an appointment on time? We are powerless because of heavy traffic, kids won’t cooperate, or some other excuse. If we really faced the truth of the situation, we would see that this supposed powerlessness is a clever disguise to keep us resisting what we can do in the moment.

From Dr. Robert Anthony newsletter