Addicted to Hope

In his autobiography, Based on a True Story, comedian Norm Macdonald details his years long gambling addiction, which cost him his life-savings on three, yep three, separate occasions. In a poignant reflection in the book, he informs his readers about what sustains any gambling addiction (and one can generalize his comments to any addiction). Contrary to popular belief, he notes, it isn’t winning, since most gambling addicts lose most of their money anyway; in reality, it’s merely the hope of winning. That initial moment between the dice having been thrown and landing on the table, that dopamine rush of expectation, when life became arrested by a prenatal bliss, hooked hm for the rest of his.

Hope, like anything else, is a double-edged sword. Hope is associated with resilience, discipline, and lower levels of neuroticism. But, hope can just as easily become its own form of escapism. Positive Psychologist Kennon Sheldon noted that we are awful at predicting what will make us happy. His studies on happiness indicated that our degrees of happiness vary from the first stage to the last, meaning there are discrepancies between our expectations of happiness, feeling happy when we get what we want, and remembering how happy we were when we had it. This causes all sorts of problems. We hope for a sense of joy that reality often fails to provide. We feel ungrateful for the rewards that, inevitably, fail to match our expectations. And we continue to pursue similar goals, if not exactly the same ones, hoping, again, for better outcomes.

In treatment, patients get stuck in hope. They hope for their partners to change, despite no actual attempts to. They hope to rekindle old romances that weren’t that good to begin with. They continue to suffer for more money or clout, which, more often than not, don’t foster the desperately sought after self-love. But, if Norm is right, few of them are after the actual rewards themselves. And most of them, usually unconsciously, want to continue to hope.

Hope is, at times, linked to perfectionism and striving for an idyllic future. And hope can be associated with the emotional degradation of one’s lot. Since many of us tend to hyper-focus on the negative aspects of our lives, hope provides us with rescue fantasies. The next thing, or person, will be better. To hope, as much as the construct is linked to possibility and self-efficacy, in a way, is to be unable to accept what life has to offer. And Norm wasn’t the only comedian fixated on hope. Joan Rivers, another legendary comedian, over-utilized plastic surgery in an effort to keep hope alive. Fellow comedian Nikki Glaser, when discussing her life and work, noted that Rivers followed the blueprint of so many other comedians by seeking out complete validation. One more surgery would finally do it, making her feel worthy and beautiful. The idea of one more surgery afforded her hope.

Whether or not we’re aware of hope as a drug, we still continue to chase it. Some, like me, truly see hope as a means to an end. While others, like the insightful Norm, know that hope is the sought-after end. The perfectionists abuse hope like they abuse their bodies and minds. But hope can, obviously, be wonderful, too.

As best as we can, we need to ask ourselves if we would accept some part of what’s possible. We can continue to keep hoping for more, retreating to fantasy, while acknowledging that our imaginations are, for the most part, there to protect and soothe us. Taken too seriously, they lead to resentment and bitterness or, worse, complete isolation. Too much hope, like too much pride, is its own sin, causing us to flippantly discard the one life we’re gifted. For who are we to expect life to provide so much more than it’s given to anyone else? Even if we did work so incredibly hard.