Hope: Too Much Then Too Little (Patreon)

At first, we hope too much. Then, we hope too little.

That's not an original coinage of mine. I think it was one of those French essayists of the Enlightenment who said it first (or at least most famously).

We overestimate what we can get done in 1 or 12 months, and underestimate what we can get done in 18, 24, 36 or 120 months.

It's true in work, play and love (which, if you do it right, often all end up being the same thing). At first, we think we're going to dominate the language in the very near future. Then, when our best laid plans inevitably get mugged by snafus, we fear we will never amount to anything, and that we were fools to have ever entertained such happy visions.

Both of these extremes a lies and both are untrue, although the latter (despair) is far more damaging than the former (irrational exuberance). The irrational exuberant, if he were to remain that way, would -- by his demeanor and behavior -- eventually attract and/or find the people, information, resources and other opportunities to bring his irrational visions to fruition.

But remaining irrationally exuberant isn't something most of us can or even need do. Besides, there is a better way.

Proportionality. Remember the teachings of John Lewis Gaddis ("Grand Strategy"). The principle of proportionality. Hope enough to inch forward. Proportion your hope to your TER -- time, energy and resources. Don't round up to infinity (irrational exuberance), don't round down to zero (despair). Calibrate a little bit, like the music volume on your smartphone. There's no need to go nuts with fine-tuning, just find a sweet spot between mute and public disturbance.

"life's this game of inches...The inches we need are everywhere around us...every minute, every second." [American Rhetoric: Movie Speech from On Any Given Sunday -- Coach D'Amato Addresses his players on Peace by Inches] https://goo.gl/g19YaC

Find an inch of hope. Take an inch of action. Repeat.

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