Hi Peter,

The first time I came across the passage I wondered what he could mean to hope for the wrong thing. Isn’t hope a good thing?

In hindsight on my experience hope I think I can say that more often than not hope for the wrong thing as it only amplified what it was that I wished to avoid.

Yes, we can hope for the wrong  thing, so it can be counterproductive. My hope is related to physical health actually: hope not to be in chronic physical pain till the rest of my life. And yes, fear of that very scenario. So I can resonate with Vaclav Havel’s definition of hope: Hope is a dimension of the soul, an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizon. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.

I have a hard time accepting that chronic physical pain makes sense and that it brings any good to anyone – at least not on the long run. I am all for learning our lessons, even through pain and suffering, and transcending ourselves and our limitations. But constant and relentless physical pain (and suffering that it produces) is something that doesn’t make sense to me. Therefore, I hope that it is not what waits ahead. Luckily, I am not in constant physical pain, but it comes and goes. I’ve learned to appreciate when it lessens. So I hope that it will be manageable and not a constant suffering.

I also know that pain and suffering are not the same. I am learning not to associate physical pain with the thought that “I am doomed, this will never end.” Because a thought like that causes even greater suffering.

As for Thomas Merton’s definition of hope, it sounds more related to the attachment to the results of our work. He says we shouldn’t be attached, if I understood well, and still keep doing that what we feel is right and valuable. I do agree with him fully…