Hope is a double-edged sword.
On one hand, it gives us something to look forward to. But on the other, it gives us something to lose.
So let's take a closer look at the downside. Is it worth the risk of failure, or should we save ourselves the trouble?
Assume the worst. Imagine that — despite our best efforts — we fail irreversibly at everything we try, in a way that's maximally painful for ourselves, and maximally harmful to the people we love.
Imagine that none of our hopes come to fruition. That we immortalise our inadequacy in a continual string of failures that never takes a turn for the better.
Imagine we pull out all the stops, and sacrifice everything, and still come up short. And imagine that it's our fault.
What then?
We'd have nowhere to hide. No way of denying reality. No escape from the fact that we've poured precious, finite potential into visions that never became reality.
And yet, I don't think we'd be trapped.
Failure is a painful signal, but it has no inherent meaning. No matter what, we can assign our own significance to it, and by definition, this significance implies a path forward.
Even if uncontrollable factors pin us into a corner, they can't stop us from fighting back.
As long as we're alive and lucid, nobody can take away our ability to extract lessons from the pain of failure, adjust our aim, and try again. Succeeding is (of course) preferable, but this is only a shallow status game layered on a much deeper moral necessity.
And maybe, once we understand this, we can finally go all-in.