Hope Versus Depression

Is hope false, but depression considered being normal?

Hope and depression: – two polarising extremes we can say, right?

 To go on further we can even also talk about emotions such as  hope and hopelessness or even despair, which are so drastically  different from one another. 

Why talk about these two opposite emotions: it’s because they have a strong connection to one another; i.e. hope is like an antidote to hopelessness of despair and helps us move forward.

Hope is the emotion that fuels our human spirit forward and encourages us to achieve our goals and overcome our obstacles. It also encourages risk-taking and imagination, which can even lead to a lot of positive changes. However, when we talk about hope it is important to distinguish between REAL hope and FALSE hope and not get confused between the two:

False Hope: In order to understand what false hope really is, think about all the con games such as sweepstakes, gambling, risky investments, get rich quick schemes, quack cures, hoaxes, urban legends, mysticism, faith exploitations, promised miracles and similar other scams.  

Whats the common thread for all of these activities? They all are manipulations which exploit distortions in our own thinking processes and even other vulnerabilities.

Hope is tested only when it meets what it requires. An accurate assessment, constructive criticism, sound judgment and personal responsibility are the real differences between REAL hope and FALSE hope.

To illustrate this, recollect the Keynote Address at the 2004 democratic national convention; which was an inspiring speech that was delivered by Barack Obama on “The Audacity of Hope”. 

In his speech, he sited many examples where there was undaunted strength of people that overcame all of the obstacles in order to achieve great things. 

In addition to this, Obama went on to write a book entitled The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming The American Dream.

Real Hope: On the other hand, real hope combines a firm grip of reality with a hopeful outlook of the situation at hand. The outlook ranges from a very positive one to a hopeful spirit to even a very negative or hopeless stance. So a person can express emotions ranging from hopeful, high hopes, optimistic, open, positive and even favourable; to skeptical, pessimistic, hopeless and doubtful.

As the person gets more and more involved with the challenge at hand they also learn more about the real problems that they are facing. Their entire grasp of reality actually begins to change where the individual is fully informed about the difficulties they will face. People here are usually tenacious, courageous, inspiring and persistent to achieve results.  

   

However, at times when hope CAN be FALSE, what about the other emotions that seep into your life like depression? Why even bring up such a negative emotion such as depression? – Well, its because FALSE hope is actually like your holding onto something that may never ever actually happen; i.e. you are HOPING (FALSELY) it is really unlikely and eventually impossible to achieve. Does this make any sense to you?

For instance, if you were to have "false hope", that basically means that you have an unshakeable faith that everything will turn out to work in your favour, no matter how unfavourable the situation is.

 It is similar to wishful thinking. 

The outlook is definitely hopeful, but is it even possible?

 The reality is very unknown, denied, dismissed and distorted. Our thinking is a result of our own judgment, perception, bias and experience.   

In 2017 Claudia Bloese wrote that “…almost all major philosophers acknowledge that hope plays an important role in regard to human motivation, politics and religious beliefs.

Depression is considered to be the exact opposite of hope and according to Greek mythology, (which is taken from the ancient myth of Pandora’s creation in Hesiod’s Works and Days), the box was a jar given to Pandora that contained all of the evils of the world. Pandora opened this box and all the evils flew out, but only hope stayed inside. 

In today’s time and age this phrase, “to open Pandora’s box” means to perform an action that may seem innocent and small but actually turns out to be ac act that has severe detrimental and far-reaching negative consequences.

    

However, while there is always hope around us depression blinds us to this fact. It is first very important to know the difference between sadness and depression; because they are NOT AT ALL the same. Everyone feels sad at some time or the other; its impossible to always be happy, right?

However, clinical depression is far more severe; it is a lot more than JUST the occasional bouts of sadness. Sadness is not always linked with depression; in fact other emotions such as an empty feeling, or being numb, or even no awareness of feeling anything at all can be associated with depression.

There are different levels of depression, ranging from short in duration and mild to long term and very severe forms of depression, which can even, be life threatening. So what’s it like to suffer from depression?

What are the symptoms?

Some of the major symptoms include feelings of guilt, feelings of helplessness, self-harm, loss or even gain of weight, self-hatred, loss of energy and even motivation, becoming very vulnerable and ‘oversensitive’, getting delusions and/or hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, physical aches and pains, an inability to concentrate and loss of sex drive.

Depression is an extremely debilitating condition to suffer from and the most painful to fight against, because at the end the REMOTE CONTROL to changes in our life remains in our hands. It is no doubt a sense of intense grief and deep sadness        

Many people misunderstand what the difference between depression and feelings of helplessness are. In this confusion hope is really just an illusion for us, don't you think? We HOLD onto something so tightly yet its not there, its not tangible – its really just a TRICK of the mind! However, it motivates us to anticipate rewards and is similar to a house of cards that is built on the anticipation and yearning of ephemeral and illusory rewards.     

Our brain is the most complex organ in our body playing with our emotions. It is the organ that provides us with a virtual reality of the outer world and helps us to understand the environment and make predictions of the world.

It is this organ that is our passport for our survival and is also in charge of our emotions; our transitory emotions that nudge us on a constant basis. The brain has one huge disadvantage and that is self-reflection, where it has developed ways to deal with inconvenient critical contemplation and learn how to survive death. Our brains are nothing but organs that have developed hope as an illusion of a 'utopia' – that is a heaven or a place on earth or in the afterlife.

You DECIDE...