Brain Food #392
Are we acting out of hope or fear?
Daily Brain Food.
Thoughts of the day
Good morning.
Advertising theory claims that people are driven to buy things for two reasons: to gain pleasure or to avoid pain.
Similarly, in life, are we acting out of hope or out of fear? Is fear getting in the way of hope? Both lie deep in the imagination. Fear is what we imagine will go wrong. Hope is what we imagine will go as desired.
And if our hopes are not that apparent, perhaps what we fear the most could very well be the opposite of what we desire the most.
Marie Curie said, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Through knowledge and understanding, fears can be overcome, paving the path to realising, or even re-evaluating, one’s hopes.
As Alain de Botton wrote, “The catastrophe you fear will happen has already happened”. Acting out of fear, then, could be an internal navigation mechanism, a compass pointing towards what it is we truly want, or do not want to lose, as long as we trace it back to its source.