The Wisdom and Balance of Hope

An ancient Greek myth tells of a time when all was perfect on earth. The gods had put all the potential ills away in a locked trunk, guarded by a faithful human who tol no one of its contents. As ill luck would have it, though, this man’s teenage daughter, Pandora, became fascinated with finding out what was in the trunk. One day, she finally found a way to open the trunk. Out exploded all the ills of existence, each more terrifying to behold than the next. Horrified, Pandora slammed the trunk closed. Then, she heard a voice calling from inside the trunk. Curiosity yet again overcoming her prudence, Pandora drew near, and listened. “I am Hope,” the voice said. “Please let me out. The world needs me in order to endure the ills, and to find ways to overcome them.” And so, Pandora let Hope out of the chest. From the spin of my Unified Theory of Emotion, hope is a balanced, virtuous, spiritual feeling that is part of the emotion of humility. In hope, we swallow despair, and we take time to digest all that has happening. In hope, we balance our awe over what is beautiful and good with our hopelessness over what is ugly and bad. Hope is also part of the complicated virtue of wisdom, which is in turn a combination of the simpler virtues of pain, humility and compassion.

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