Standing on the Shanky Ladder of Hope

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.

- the Tao te Ching (Stephen Mitchel translation)

After the last entry about the power of hope it felt fitting to bring in a little balance from the Tao and remember to be cautious with hope and success. Hope and success are great and but they can lead to suffering when we rely on them for our happiness.

Hope makes us feel good, fills us with optimism and inspiration but it can also lead to disappointment if the thing we hope doesn’t happen. If we are really strongly hoping for something, if it doesn’t happen then we can get really depressed, disillusioned or cynical.

Isn’t this what some people are now starting to feel about the Obama presidency? Feeling like he hasn’t fulfilled so many of the great hopes and expectations held by so many? Indeed pinning our hopes on one political leader is like standing on a very shaky ladder.

Success too can be shaky when it leads us to overconfidence. A little success today can lead to disappointment tomorrow if our success doesn’t continue. So often success can lead to pride and narrow mindedness. A little failure once and while is healthy because we learn humility from it. To learn balance on the ladder sometimes we need to fall off it a couple of times.
 
Balanced between success and failure, free from needing the future to be one way or another, clear and present in the moment, at peace with the way things are, true happiness and fulfillment can be found, here and now and in every moment.