One of those words that bring in us both joy and fear. Because, deep inside, we are afraid of hoping. As we grow older this fear becomes stronger and stronger. After a while cynicism morphs this skill of avoiding hope into something we think is a more intelligent approach. But, why do we fear hope? Simple. Because we are afraid to be disappointed. To find ourselves, at the end of our expectations, with an empty hand. Maybe hope is not entirely an emotion, but it contains a lot of emotions. And, whether we are an emotional person or not, we do tend to see our emotions like value. Like money. And, like money, they are invested. And hope is a form of emotional investment. Nobody likes to lose money and nobody likes to waste emotions. If you invest and you lose, you feel sorry. You feel somehow stupid. You even feel cheated. You tend to become angry at yourself. When our hopes are not fulfilled, we feel our emotional investment was in vain. We feel robbed. After such an experience people tend to become cautious and very soon, afraid. Of course, hope is a good and necessary thing. The same way money are a good and necessary thing when investing. You can’t invest without risking your money. The whole concept of investing is based on risk. An intelligent and even documented approach to risk. But risk, nonetheless. This is why many people do not invest money. They save and deposit money. But they don’t invest. So, avoiding hope is somehow like avoiding investing.