When Hope is a “Negative” Emotion

Some time ago, I was working with a woman in USA who has a private business in which she is very engaged, creative and responsible, and potentially very successful. Still, things were going downhill, primarily because of her relationships with her employees – she was too permissive and lacked boundaries, which the employees readily (and sometimes very manipulatively) abused. We worked with her feelings of guilt, inappropriate responsibility, and fear of others’ reactions to her decisions. After all that was addressed, something else came up as an equally important, perhaps the key problem. It was hope. She kept hoping her employees will finally come around to appreciate and understand her, and start investing effort into their jobs. Of course, there was a similar unfulfilled hope she was carrying from her early family. Some of her particularly manipulative employees probably recognized and fed that hope. In her honor, this article.

希望が不健全であることを認識するのは、なぜそれほど難しいのだろうか？

Most people who work on self-improvement want to resolve unpleasant emotions: fear, shame, guilt, anger… This is expected and natural. Yet, sometimes a “positive” emotion can actually be a “negative” one. How? If it urges us to ignore facts, experience and common sense, and to make unthoughtful, unbalanced choices.

Unrealistic hope is such an emotion and sometimes it can create more damage than unpleasant emotions (excluding perhaps violent rage). Unpleasant emotions such as fear and shame urge us to have more self-restraint, which can result in missing some opportunities. But we often fight them because they are unpleasant. On the other hand, hope can motivate us to make unwise, unrealistic decisions – and it’s very pleasant and seductive.

希望は世界を動かす。希望は、進歩のために自らの命を危険にさらす（あるいは犠牲にする）人々や、激しい抵抗にもかかわらず人類を前進させる（あるいは足を引っ張る）人々を動かした。しかしその一方で、多くの無言の、そしてあまり目立たない方法で、多くの書かれざる人生の中で、不健康な希望は 両刃の剣.

私たちが不快な感情を避けるように、快い感情も受け入れ、従い、増やす傾向がある。 私たちの身体は、不快＝悪い、快＝良いという極めて単純な本能に従っている。 Hope is even more than pleasant; it can give us strength when we need it, meaning when things look bleak – hope is one of our primary motivators, even primary needs in life.

それでも、不快な感情が必ずしも間違っているわけではないのと同じように（たとえば悲しみは、おそらく発見されていない愛の可能性や他者への思いやりを見出すきっかけになる）、楽しい感情は客観的な現実や長期的な結果を無視することにつながるかもしれない。

夢中 は最も明白な例であり、しばしば非現実的な希望と絡み合っている。理性を無視させ、平凡を理想化させ、理不尽を擁護させる。希望と熱中が一緒になると、人々は何年にもわたって明らかな虐待に苦しむことになる。多くの場合、家族関係であるが、ビジネス関係もある（上の例のように、幼少期の問題をビジネス環境に自発的に投影してしまう人が多いからだ）。

マーケティングと政治の世界で人を操る人々 (とにかくほとんどがマーケティングだが）希望の力をよく知っている。マーケティングを要約すると 希望を売る. If the hope for something important can be triggered in sufficiently attractive ways, it can make even smart people repeat similar mistakes, ignoring that maybe-Einstein’s quote “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. In politics, hope put into wrong people can have very destructive consequences not only on national, but on global level.

希望に基づいて過ちを犯せば、同情を受けることはまずない。犯罪や不運の被害者は、しばしば愚かで無責任なレッテルを貼られる。 被害者を責める – while usually the only mistake of those victims was that they chose hope over caution and 赤旗. It’s important to be kind and supportive to ourselves even when people try to put us down for such mistakes. But as social beings, we have a need for others’ feedback, and it might not be easy to disregard it. You can increase your resilience to mocking and labeling by building a good relationship with yourself, primarily through making 自分の感情の友.

子供じみた希望とそれをどうするか

希望が感覚を凌駕する力はどこから来るのだろうか？希望が幼少期の記憶に根ざしている場合、これは起こる。 不快な感情だけが子供っぽいわけではない, “positive” emotions can be, too. (Read about how to recognize childish emotions in この記事.)

偏った決断の動機となる幼少期の希望は、多くの場合、何らかの自尊心の問題と微妙に関係している。 満たされない欲求: we might hope that we’ll receive something we never had as children in a similar situation or with a similar person (such as approval or understanding), prove something we couldn’t as children, or repair some injustice or chaos we experienced as children. Again, this is most obvious in love relationship, but certainly not limited to them.

ひとたびこのことに気づけば、子供じみた希望にも、他の子供じみた感情と同じように、思いやりと愛情をもって、しかし客観的な現実を意識して接することができる。希望の背後に隠されたニーズを認識し より健康的な方法でニーズを満たす.自分の創造力を発揮して、自分が望むものを、痛い代償を払うことなく生み出す方法を見つけることができる。

Finally, how can you know when hope might be healthy and adult, and when to listen to its advice? It’s usually when hope is not mixed with a sense of urgency and fear you will miss something. When you are easily able to consider objective circumstances and a wide range of possible decisions and outcomes, rather than feeling a need to ignore them. Similarly like healthy love, when it’s not rooted in need and sense of lack, but in joy and fulfillment.まず自分の内側に集中し、自分自身と良好な関係を築くことに集中し、それから初めて自分の外側に望むことに集中すれば、これを達成することができる。

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