False hopes & hopes that open our future!

"Without hopes and dreams one cannot live"

Maybe it been too long since a wise person told you a story that spoke to your heart and helped you make sense of your life ?

Maybe you are searching for meaning in your life among your daily activities...?

... our experience mirrors what is happening in our culture - we are surrounding by stories, fables, myths, social network, real and fake stories that reflect our life style and in few occasions help us to oriented our life towards meaning.

Today in this accelerating technological environment.. the social environment is getting more and more problematic for many. Violence, inequality among extreme rich and poor, gender discrimination, generational clash, cultural clash, isolation, terrorism, climate change and suicide... Today many experiment theses problems and have difficulty to related to there environment.

In fact, one have to recognizing the existential, historical, economical, social and cultural conditions that underlies the present moment of dehumanization.

"Looking at the technological advance and their impact on human communications which are now more than ever connected to the global whole".

We understand that within the short span of our lives an acceleration has taken place surpassing centuries of another historical moment. Moreover if we look closely many of our hopes and dreams belong to a landscape that doesn't exist anymore."

Today we live in this extraordinary moment. But at one point we need to ask ourselves- what is our personal and collective destiny? Where are we going? When it come to defining our destiny many time we oriented ourselves towards the false proposals since our dreams and hopes come from the past.

But than we imagine our life would have meaning, thinking that our personal developement depends on our couple, money, family, friends, jobs.,. and in some ways we detray ourselves.

Theses are falses hopes!  We can spend entire stages of our life in this closed circle .. believe that it is possible to resolve the meaning of our life by looking outside. And in this way we go from one thing to the other getting closer or farther away from our project, accompanied by a profound internal sensation of frustration and self betrayal. And so on, we change our reveries or we change our environment, we change the direction of our actions, looking for a new motivation among the ones offered to us, once again putting all our expectations outside. Putting are expections in things or other people. Eventually we feel betrayal or failure. In order to work on this betryal, one have to recognize which falses hopes brought failure.

At one moment  one need to leap over his/her false hopes to give a new direction to her/his own life! But to do so, ones must consider what events have happened in the past, what is happening the actual situation, and what one wants to achieve in the future.

We act according to what motivates us, according to interests and aspirations -- motivations come from behind us, from the past ; aspirations are those things that you would like to happen. Finally interests have more to do with behaviours, and they denote your mental direction among the collective direction.

According to Victor Frankl, Carl Jung (psychotherapists) and Joseph Campbell (mythologist) myths connect us and propel our constructive participation in society. But Campbell also remind us that myths shows us how profoundly our unifying mythology has disintegrated.*

In fact "myths" work in society like a vacuum with common shared values. Today this vacuum of our shared values awakened in people a drive to reconnect with a functional social fabric. "Real human connection".

Indeed, we have seem a growing interest to technology and social networking and connection among various people. Unfortunately, many people use social medias for "catharsis and bashing other". I think the uses of social medias would be different if our workplace and our social environment would be humanized. I do believe that many people experiment various tensions in workplace and in social environment. In fact, the use of social medias for discharge tensions is Today trend. Many others used social medias to discharges tensions related to daily life.

Maybe theses mediasbsocial network phenomenon- are "reality criteria" - and reminders that falses hope are not the path towards meaning in life and freedom!

Since, We, human being more than ever, need to connect with something that serves a vital role in our life and in the global whole. It seems like if one's study a bit closer his/her fears of the future ... She/ he may discover - compensatory reveries link to falses hopes  that generated tensions- (reverie about prestige, money, domination,and others). Also one may understand how some of these reverie are negative for a better future and may - if things are maintained this way - create more crisis and failure

When one vision is dragged from dreams and hopes that are already exhausted.. failure bring some fear into the vision of the future..

Why not reflect on this theme?

To help the reflection I would like to share with you a story from a book publish two decades ago, «Tales for Heart and Mind: The Guided Experiences, A storybook for Grownups. This book was written by Silo. The story is called «False Hopes».

False hopes - short story

I have arrived outside the office of the doctor who was recommended to me, and I notice a small plaque that warns: «You who enter here, abandon all hope. »

When I ring the bell, the door opens and a nurse shows me into the waiting room. She points to a chair and I take a seat as she sits down facing me behind her desk. Picking up a form, she inserts it in her typewriter and asks, «Name? I answer her. «Age? Profession? Marital status? Blood type? »

The nurse continues filling in the form with my family’s medical history.

Then I answer her questions about my own medical history.  ….

I describe for her all the accidents I have had since my childhood. …

With a piercing state, the nurse slowly inquires, «What is your criminal record? » I answer her with a certain uneasiness.

Then she asks, « What are your hopes and dreams? » Abruptly I stop my obedient answers to her questions and demand an explanation.

Unperturbed, and staring at me coldly as if I were an insect, she, replies, «Hopes and dreams are merely hopes and dreams! So you’d better start telling me yours, and be quick about it, because I have to go meet my boyfriend. »

Rising out of my chair, with one swipe I rip the form from her typewriter. Tearing it to pieces. I throw it in the wastebasket. Then I turn and cross the room to the door through which I entered, but now it won’t open. Exasperated, I yell at the nurse to open it, and when she doesn’t answer I turn and see that the room – is empty!

Stranding to the other door, which leads to the examination room, I feel sure the doctor will be there and I’ll tell him all of my complaints. «This must be how that wonderful nurse escaped », I mutter as I open the door – and manage to stop myself just short of a wall. «A door with a wall behind it, what a great idea! "I exclaim." Then I rush back to the first door. This time it opens, but again I run into a wall that blocks my way. I realize that I`m trapped.

Over a loudspeaker I hear the doctor’s voice say, « Tell me about your hopes and dreams. «Regaining my composure, I testily reply that we’re all adults here, and obviously my greater hope is simply to get out of this ridiculous predicament. But the says, «The plaque on the wall at the entrance warns anyone who enters here to abandon all hope».

The situation new seems to be some kind of grotesque joke, so I sit down to see how it will turn out.

«Let’s begin again, «says the voice. Remember how your childhood was filled with hopes and dreams. As time passed, however, you realized that many of them were never going come true. So you abandoned those beautiful projects. Remember? …

«Later on, » the voice continues, «other hopes and dreams followed, and again you had to resign yourself to the fact that many of your desires would not come true. Remember? …

«Even at this very moment, you have certain hopes and dreams. I don’t mean your hope of escaping this confinement, for the illusion we’re staged here is already over. I’m speaking of something else.  I am speaking about your hopes and dreams for the future.   …

«Which of your hopes do you secretly know will never come true? Go ahead, think this over honestly.  ….

«Without hopes and dreams, we cannot live. But once we know that certain hopes and false,we can’t hold on to them forever, because sooner or later they`ll end in crisis and failure. If you can search deep within yourself and find the hopes you realize will never come true, and if you make the effort to abandon these hopes here forever, you will gain a greater sense of reality.

«So let’s return to our task. Seek out among your fondest hopes and dreams those you sense will never come true. But don’t be confused, for there are many things that do seem possible! Do not focus on these – choose only those hopes and dreams that will never be realized. Go ahead now, search out your false hopes. Be completely honest with yourself, even if it’s a bit painful.  …

«Resolve that when you leave this room, you will leave your false hopes behind forever., …

«And now, let’s finish this task. Let`s study those other important hopes – the hopes and dreams you do consider possible. I’ll give you some help: Guide your life only by what you believe is possible, or what you genuinely feel will come true. And it doesn’t matter it later on some of these things don`t work out, because they have, after all, given direction to your actions.  ….

«And so, we have finished. You can leave now by the way you came in, and be quick about it, because I have to go meet my secretary. »

I get up. Walking the few steps to the door., I open it and leave the doctor`s office. Looking at the plaque at the entrance, I see that it now reads, «You who leave, abandon here all false hopes. »

Final note:

Changing the direction of our lives in order to orient them toward our destiny, toward Meaning in Life, is a work that begins with the profound knowledge of the direction that our lives have now.

If you want to change that direction, it seem one need to reinforce some things and leave others that are not interesting, such as falses hopes.

By explaining falses hopes in such a way, it could be seem for the readers as if some parts of their life were a failure, or maybe some parts feel flat -- but in reality the failure is in not being able to fly above it, and so there begin the justifications. .. after justifications .. after justifications!

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Note: * source : Tales for Heart and Mind : the Guide Experiences. A story for Grownups, p. xii

Tales for Heart and Mind: The Guided Experiences. A storybook for Grownups by Silo, contains a productions of story’s. Each story is distinct from the others and in the direction given to the narrative. Recipient of a 1994 Benjamin Franklin Book Award, this collection of twenty-one sage and lively tales invites the reader into a playful theater of life. This illustrated large-format storybook for grownups is of dual interest, both entertaining and useful in bringing personal peace and resolution. Latitude Press, 1993 www.latitudepress.com