Giving up hope makes you happier

[GliderGuider]

Abandon Hope, all Ye Who Enter Here

Giving up hope makes you happier

Researchers have found that giving patients with serious illnesses hope for a cure can actually make them more depressed.

Giving up hope can make those living with a serious illness happier, according to psychologists.

Researchers found that patients who continually hoped for a cure for their condition were likely to be more miserable than those who accepted their illness and tried to get on with life.

Peter Ubel, director of the University of Michigan Centre for Behavioural and Decision Sciences in Medicine, spoke about "the dark side of hope".

"Sometimes, if hope makes people put off getting on with their life, it can get in the way of happiness," he explained.

"We think they were happier because they got on with their lives. They realised the cards they were dealt and recognised that they had no choice but to play with those cards."

Mr Ubel, one of the authors of the Happily Hopeless study, looked at a group of adults who had their colons removed.

Of the 71 patients, 41 were told they could have surgery to repair their bowels, while the rest were told that there was nothing more they could do.

Those who had resigned themselves to living with a colostomy bag were happier six months after the news than those with a chance of recovery.

Mr Ubel said: "We're not saying hope is a bad thing.

"What we're pointing out is that there can be a dark side of hope. It can cause people to put their lives on hold.

"Instead of moving on and trying to make the best of circumstances, you can think, 'my circumstances are going to change eventually – no point in dealing with these circumstances'."

I just knew that's why I was so happy these days.

[phantom power]

1. unaccountably, that made me think of....

[Warpy]

2. It's more like rolling with the punches than giving up hope

I've dealt with a particularly nasty chronic illness my whole life and I never know what it's going to throw at me, whether I'll be able to walk well enough to get through a day or if I'll just be able to crawl among bed, puter and toilet, forget about eating, I'll have to do that tomorrow.

You just learn to do what you can do and tune out all those tapes in your head that play the "should" and "ought" drumbeats. Once you do that, you can navigate through life reasonably successfully, although you soon learn not to make elaborate plans.

The problem with the people who try to maintain that relentlessly sunny optimism regarding a cure just around the corner is that they're inevitably crushed and they give up all enthusiasm at once. Then they die.

[GliderGuider]

5. The tapes in your head

"tune out all those tapes in your head that play the "should" and "ought" drumbeats"

That's a life-altering insight, my friend. Those tapes may all sound like your voice, but they're not you.

Carolyn Baker had this comment about the article: "Hopium" is a drug. Acceptance, getting and giving support, and finding meaning in one's suffering is the real deal.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. I prefer Leonard Bernstein

“It's so easy when you just don’t care.”

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. You've got to have hope: Studies show 'hope therapy' fights depression (hope -vs- optimism)

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/osu-ygt081308.php

Public release date: 16-Aug-2008

Contact: Jennifer Cheavens
[e-mail]
614-247-6733
http://researchnews.osu.edu/">Ohio State University

You've got to have hope: Studies show 'hope therapy' fights depression

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A growing body of research suggests that there is a potent way to fight symptoms of depression that doesn't involve getting a prescription.

This potent weapon? Hope.

"We're finding that hope is consistently associated with fewer symptoms of depression. And the good news is that hope is something that can be taught, and can be developed in many of the people who need it," said Jennifer Cheavens, assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

Cheavens and Laura Dreer of the University of Alabama at Birmingham discussed some of the latest research on how hope can battle depression during a symposium Saturday Aug. 16 in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Boston.

Cheavens measures hope in people using a 12-item questionnaire developed by her mentor, the late C.R. Snyder of the University of Kansas. In this measure, hope has two components: a map or pathway to get what you want, and the motivation and strength to follow that path.

"If you feel you know how to get what you want out of life, and you have that desire to make that happen, then you have hope," Cheavens said.

Hope is different from optimism, which is a generalized expectancy that good things will happen, she said. Hope involves having goals, along with the desire and plan to achieve them.

The potential of hope as a way to fight depression is apparent in a recent study of patients and caregivers that Cheavens discussed in her APA presentation.

In this study, Cheavens and Dreer examined 97 adults, most over age 60, who had been diagnosed with macular degeneration or other conditions that would cause them to lose their sight.

The researchers looked at measures of hope and depression in these people with low vision, along with their caregivers.

As expected, the researchers found that, in general, caregivers were more likely to have significant depressive symptoms if the patients themselves had symptoms of depression.

But caregivers who scored higher on measures of hope showed fewer depressive symptoms, even if the people they care for were depressed. Higher-hope caregivers also showed higher satisfaction with life, and felt less of a sense of burden.

"Hope seems to be protective for caregivers," Cheavens said.

The good news is that hope is something that can be developed in people, she said.

In a study published in the journal Social Indicators Research, Cheavens and her colleagues tested a hope therapy treatment with a sample of 32 people recruited through newspaper ads and flyers. The ads asked for participants willing to attend weekly group meetings designed to increase participants' abilities to reach goals.

The researchers specifically looked for people who were not diagnosed with depression or other mental illnesses, but who felt dissatisfied with where they were in life.

"Many of the people who seek therapy are not mentally ill – they don't meet criteria for depression or other illnesses," Cheavens said. "So if you focus primarily on what is wrong with them, there may not be much progress."

"Hope therapy seeks to build on strengths people have, or teach them how to develop those strengths. We focus not on what is wrong, but on ways to help people live up to their potential."

In this study, about half the participants took part in eight, two-hour group sessions led by trained leaders. As part of these sessions, they were taught new hope-related skills, including identifying goals, ways to achieve them, and how to motivate themselves.

Results showed that those who participated in the hope therapy had reduced depressive symptoms compared to the control group that did not participate.

"We're finding that people can learn to be more hopeful, and that will help them in many ways," Cheavens said.

"What I think is exciting about hope therapy is the way we are learning from people who are doing very well. We have been figuring out what hopeful people are doing right, and taking those lessons and developing therapies and interventions for people who are not doing as well," Cheavens said.

"And the great news is that it seems to work – we can teach people how to be more hopeful."
###

Contact: Jennifer Cheavens, [phone]; [e-mail]
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, [phone]; [e-mail]

[joshcryer]

10. OP thinks environmental destruction is uncurable, thus the comparison. I personally...

...have beat a decade long battle with crushing depression simply by attaching myself to a hopeful cause.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Abandon hope: Live sustainably just because it's the right thing to do

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/mtu-ah021809.php

Public release date: 20-Feb-2009

Contact: Jennifer Donovan
[e-mail]
906-487-4521
http://www.mtu.edu/">Michigan Technological University

Abandon hope

Live sustainably just because it's the right thing to do

Do you "hope" that everyone will see the light and start living more sustainably to save the environment? If so, you may be doing more harm than good.

So say an environmental scientist and an environmental ethicist in a provocative essay in the March 2009 issue of the international journal, The Ecologist. John Vucetich, assistant professor of animal ecology at Michigan Technological University, and Michael Nelson, associate professor of environmental ethics at Michigan State University, challenge the widespread belief that hope can motivate people to solve overwhelming social and environmental problems.

"Is hope a placebo, a distraction, merely sowing the seeds of disillusionment?" they ask, in an opinion piece titled "Abandon Hope." The authors, co-founders and directors of the Conservation Ethics Group, an of environmental ethics consultancy, examine the proper role of hope in environmentalism. They suggest that hope's alternative is not hopelessness or despair, but rather the inherent virtue of "doing the right thing."

For decades, say Vucetich and Nelson, we have been hammered by the ceaseless thunder of messages predicting imminent environmental cataclysm: global climate change, air and water pollution, destruction of wildlife habitat, holes in the ozone. The response of environmentalists—from Al Gore to Jane Goodall—to this persistent message of hopelessness has focused on the need to remain hopeful.

But hope may actually be counter-productive, Vucetich and Nelson suggest. "I have little reason to live sustainably if the only reason to do so is to hope for a sustainable future, because every other message I receive suggests that disaster is guaranteed," they explain.

People are hearing radically contradictory messages:

• Scientists present evidence that profound environmental disaster is imminent.
• It is urgent to live up to an extremely high standard of sustainable living.
• The reason to live sustainably is that doing so gives hope for averting disaster.
• Yet disaster is inevitable.

"Given a predisposition to mistrust authorities, such contradictions justifiably elicit mistrust," say Vucetich and Nelson.

If hope for averting environmental disaster is not the right reason to live sustainably, what is? The scholars say we must provide people with reasons to live sustainably that are rational and effective, based on virtues rather than consequences. That means equating sustainable living not with hope for a better future, but with basic virtues such as sharing and caring, virtues that we recognize as good in themselves and fundamentally the right way to live in the present, they explain.

One advantage to such an approach is that it can motivate even people who do not believe that we are on the brink of environmental disaster, Vucetich and Nelson point out. It also clarifies the connection between environmental and social problems, a connection many people fail to grasp.

"Instead of hope, we need to provide young people with reasons to live sustainably that are rational and effective," they say. "We need to lift up examples of sustainable living motivated by virtue more than by a dubious belief that such actions will avert environmental disaster."

###

[joshcryer]

11. Thanks for this. This is my goal in life, a 100% independent, self-sustaining home. Derrick Jensen..

...loves to sell "non-hope" in his essays. The thing is that it is difficult for me to see how "averting environmental disaster" isn't a hopeful cause.

[IrateCitizen]

21. I'm not sure that's even remotely possible.

You say you want to be "independent" and "self-sustaining". I don't think that such a condition has ever existed throughout the entire realm of human existence. In all societies -- from the paleolithic through the present -- humans have never been able to sustain themselves without the cooperation and assistance of others.

Such an outlook is, I believe, the outcome of what Adam Curtis so aptly described as The Century of the Self.

We are always interdependent upon others, and we likely always will be. Complete independence is an illusion. The only way I can see to arrive at a different conclusion is to ignore the entire history of human existence on this planet.

[joshcryer]

22. Sure, the real meaning of what I said is I don't want to have to work for money for a living.

I'd depend on knowledge gleaned by other individuals, but I wouldn't have to go to the construction site and lug rocks to get a paycheck to pay my electric bill. My electricity, water, and food all would come from the sun, using recycling systems that I myself would build and maintain. I could never leave my land for the rest of my entire existence and have no contact with any other human being, if that was what I wanted (it wasn't what I intended with my independency statement).

This is self-sustainability as far as practicality is concerned. I do breath air that you eventually help create. I do drink water that you, at some point, may have perspired.

Economic self-sufficiency.

[IrateCitizen]

25. I'm not disagreeing at all with your desire for economic self-sufficiency.

It's certainly something that has always existed in the back of my mind.

The irreconcilable differences between this desire and reality come into play when I start looking at it through the lens of a detailed study of human history. The main point being that there has been absolutely no time in which humans have experienced economic self-sufficiency, at least in terms of individual people. A concept of community has always been central to our economic sufficiency.

While living in the setting you describe, are you to tell me that you will build and maintain everything on your property through materials and resources you mine on that property? Or will you, at a minimum initially, require the assistance of other people through involvement in some kind of socio-economic exchange -- such as purchases made through the market or a network of mutual obligations among community and kin?

As for your last comment about us breathing the same air and drinking the same water, I wholeheartedly agree. I think that we need to all first acknowledge that we ALL depend upon the same natural systems to survive, and therefore we need to adjust our lives to steward them properly and responsibly. Where I think we differ is that you see an impetus toward such a change as coming from technology and an existence viewed through the lens of complete individuality. I see it that those impulses combined together have largely gotten us into this mess, and that the solution involves a rediscovery of community -- which will probably not emerge in the absence of a prolonged crisis that makes it necessary for our basic survival.

[joshcryer]

29. The human species *did* though spend most of its time without global commerce.

And trade was limited to localities rather than large global communities. Indeed, it would still have been this way if technology didn't make trade from afar a viable option. It is an unsustainable option, however. The more distant the resource the more energy necessary to get it and the less likely everyone can have a piece of it.

While living in the setting you describe, are you to tell me that you will build and maintain everything on your property through materials and resources you mine on that property? Or will you, at a minimum initially, require the assistance of other people through involvement in some kind of socio-economic exchange -- such as purchases made through the market or a network of mutual obligations among community and kin?

Mineral rights are a pain in the butt to get, so I can't mine the property, though theoretically it is possible to do that, if you had the technology beforehand, anyway. Obviously you can't do this without initially requiring the "assistance of other people," since "other people" are those who own the technologies necessary to achieve the goal. For instance, I want to build a greenhouse, initially I will have to pay someone for a polyethelene covering for my greenhouse. Subesequently I can grow bioplastics in the greenhouses, and replace the greenhouse when it gets worn down, with a bioplastic greenhouse (PLA is an option, as I have synthesized clumps of it before)!

The basic idea is to create your own ecology which itself is self-contained and only requires atmospheric resupply (air, water, sun). Just like any other ecosystem on the planet. My waste goes into biogenic recyclers, to be fed to plants for food.

Of course, losses are inevetable, since no system is perfectly closed, however, I suspect, and I don't think this is a huge leap, that I should be able to get along for the rest of my life without any considerable (if any) resupply. Total cost of such a system with the land? Around $300-400k. Or roughly six times less than someone of my education would earn in the next 50 years (assuming I live to be around 80). (I admit I earn higher than my educational and age bracket but I got lucky which is precisely why I am saving up every dime I have to get that land.)

Note that this type of technology is sustainable, and it applies to every community in the entire world. Cities recycling their waste in large agri-towers, growing their food locally rather than shipping it in from tiny spots in the world. So it's not like I am doing it just to "get away from the world" or anything. I want to do it so that I can have a much more laid back life, living naturally within the ecosystem, without being a negative impactor like so many in our society at our level of technology.

I can have a computer and it can be zero impact.

[dgibby]

7. Funny, that's how I feel about religion.

Once I stopped believing in pie in the sky by and by, I felt soooooo much better.

[pscot]

8. Live in the moment

If your dog can do it, so can you.

[bananas]

9. "Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory." - Albert Schweitzer

[tinrobot]

12. This moment is all you have

Hoping for a better one in which to be happy postpones your happiness indefinitely.

[joshcryer]

13. Humans can shape their circumstances.

[GliderGuider]

14. No matter what our circumstances or our ability to control them

We are always happier when we live fully in the present instead of grasping towards the unknowable future or clinging to the inaccessible past. Buddha hit that nail square on the head.

[joshcryer]

16. Ignorance is indeed bliss.

We can just go "oh well," and be oblivious to our environment. Or better, we can convince ourselves we are one with the environment while doing nothing about environmental destruction that our species is acting out.

[GliderGuider]

18. No.

To use myself as an example, I am by no means oblivious to my environment. I am anything but. However I am much, much happier living fully in the present than I was when I was imagining apocalyptic outcomes a couple of years ago. Being one with one's environment doesn't mean doing nothing about negative situations. It just means acting from a full knowledge of the present situation rather than getting attached to a specific future outcome.

[joshcryer]

24. Specificity isn't necessary for a hopeful position.

Basic knowledge of thermodynamics and middle school math is all you need to be hopeful, you don't have to even have a plan, though you can work on one in your own life which you feel might contribute. But I think that rejecting hope results in people rejecting plans from the onset, basically doing nothing, because it assumes nothing can be done.

[IrateCitizen]

28. And by the other side of that coin...

Some detailed knowledge in history and sociology can temper that sense of optimism considerably.

But note, this isn't a rejection of hope, but rather an acknowledgment of the role that human behavior and social systems play in your ability to carry out plans of adjustment and mitigation.

[tinrobot]

30. The key is in the doing, not in the hoping.

Hoping something will happen is doing nothing - but hoping. It simply imagines one of many possible futures, but does nothing to realize your goals. Taking action in the present moment to realize a goal is called "doing."

The more time you spend "hoping," the less time you'll spend "doing." The more time you spend "doing," the sooner you move towards your goals.

Also, the simple task of doing puts you in the present moment, which makes you feel a lot happier.

[joshcryer]

31. I hope I can shoot a basketball into the basket. I don't know that I can, for certain.

Now if I don't hope, if I'm detached, and consider shooting a basketball into a hoop an undeserving cause, then I won't even try shooting (throwing) the basketball.

Hope, in an environment where my control is not absolute, then helps me pick the ball up and try, even if I may miss.

[tinrobot]

33. Which sounds stronger?

"I hope I make the basket"

-or-

"I will make the basket"

The second phrase has intention, and is more present. Hope detaches you from the present moment.

Athletes play sports in the present moment. Some call it being in the "zone," where all mental energy is focused on the game. Artists call it "flow," where thought detaches itself and creativity flows. When you're in this positive mental state, breaking your concentration to "hope" about some possible future does nothing but take you out of the moment, out of the zone, and out of the game.

[joshcryer]

34. For imperfect beings the former is the only practical statement.

Indeed, if you miss the basket on a hope, then you are not as dismayed as if you missed it after you willed it. Indeed, willing something implies much more control over a situation, whereas hope indicates at least a strong attempt but knowledge that it may fail.

Failure is always an option. Indifference and hopelessness is, too, mind you. But I like hope.

[tinrobot]

36. I like intention.

[tinrobot]

15. You can only shape the future by acting in the present.

[joshcryer]

17. And what other emotion expresses a desire for a better future?

Hope? Optimism? I say hope, because you can be as optimistic as you want about our environmental future, but the stark reality is that global capitalism doesn't care one iota about the environment. So that's just deluded optimism.

[GliderGuider]

19. Semantics is a big problem in this debate.

"Hope" or "optimism" can be viewed as either helpful or unhelpful depending on how one defines them, and there are lots of definitions available.

I prefer to use the phrase "unattached to outcomes." To me that means that I can work toward a desired outcome, but if something different occurs, I simply accept that as the new reality. That way I don't suffer the disappointment that being attached to the original outcome would have brought. IMO, the way "hope" and "optimism" are being used in this case means something like "being attached to or expecting a particular desired outcome." That's a setup for eventually sliding into cynicism and despair, because reality doesn't fulfill our wishes that way.

[Dead_Parrot]

20. Maybe "Expectations" is the word?

My expectations of what will happen are on the doomier side, but there's always hope.

And beer, of course.

[joshcryer]

23. "unattached to outcomes" = "indifferent" = "detached"

If I cannot control my outcomes I try until I die to do so, I don't sit down, roll over, and let whatever is happening (that is against my desires) just happen. I do something about it!

[GliderGuider]

26. One of the most amazing things about ideas

is how an idea that is transparently obvious to one person can be completely inaccessible to someone else.

I used to think that I could communicate my ideas if I just explained them clearly enough. I no longer think that. People are programmed so differently by their environment and experiences that many ideas just don't communicate all that well -- especially when the idea has a strong value component.

[IrateCitizen]

35. I see exactly what you mean.

And this, in turn, highlights why these problems and predicaments are so difficult to face head-on.

[joshcryer]

37. Detachment can definitely be an easier way to approach things.

If the other party is not enlightened enough they can never understand, etc.

[IrateCitizen]

27. The OP isn't endorsing a lack of caring or action at times like this.

I think an anecdote related by the late Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. sheds light on what he's talking about. If you've read Vonnegut, you know how much of a pessimist's view he had of the ability of humankind to avert disaster of its own making. But I read him talking of his uncle one time, who had a proclivity for pointing out the small pleasures in life that make it worth living. For example, when it was a hot day and they were sitting in the shade, enjoying a glass of lemonade, he would turn to young Kurt and ask, "Isn't this nice?" And it was.

Being unattached to outcomes doesn't mean you stop caring about things like environmental degradation, nor that you stop acting in trying to avert it. Rather, it means that you can do so and still revel in the small moments that -- let's face it -- are the essence of our existence on this blue marble hurtling through space. I can care about environmental and economic predicaments we face, I can do what I can to avert them or prepare for the worst, but at the same time I can live in the moment of my two-year-old daughter's laugh of pure happiness, enjoy the feel of the sun beaming on my face while resting after working in the garden, or to revel in the taste of a glass of cool lemonade on a hot summer's day. And in doing so, I do not base my own happiness or lack thereof on events that are not under my direct control.

That, I believe, is the essence of "unattached to outcomes" of which the OP speaks.

[joshcryer]

32. Failure is part of the learning process.

I doesn't mean you just give up and are all depressed and upset and pathetic, it means you made a mistake that you can try to subvert.