Can 'hope' be toxic?

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I put this question out there because I used to wonder why so many people after a certain age start beating their homes and dreams over the head with a shovel trying to make them go away. Now that I'm getting to that age I understand it a lot more clearly - with the things that you have a nearly impossible longshot at having it seems that 'hope' stops being a constructive force and starts becoming a force of chronic depression that, once you realize there is no realistic possibility, you realize that its an utterly illogical and useless feeling in those cases.

Is anyone else finding themselves with a similar philosophy? Mind you - I still have certain goals, albeit somewhat new ones, and I have been making practice of substituting the more realistic for the now well-disproven. I thought I'd bring it up because I can't remember the last time I've seen something like this discussed and I know society has its mantras/dogmas about never quit, never stop, etc. etc. etc. to the point that won't even let people in their early to mid 20's have their peace even if they know better - I do believe that that needs a constructive counter-dialog from time to time.

Yes. In my 20's, and really up until maybe a year ago, I still felt like "anything was possible" and I still had hopes for all kinds of things to happen for me. I have always been the type of person to think big and imagine all kinds of possibilities anyway. That's just the way I think. But at this point in my life I'm really seeing the limitations like never before. Not just my own limitations but the way society is structured. I feel like it's torture to keep believing something good will happen for me if there's no realistic way it can come about.

Well, there's a difference between realistic hopes and not.

I think what you're talking about is disillusionment. The Buddhist view would be that holding onto your attachment to the viability of past dreams is a cause of suffering. Let it go, and remodel your hopes.

Having a more realistic understanding of the extent of your power and your limitations on this earth means you have to focus in more... but you also waste less. What's the small part of your experience you really want to work with? You have to come to terms with your lack of omnipotence.

I still don't have any idea what kinds of hopes are realistic for me and which ones are not.

I still sort of feel like anything is possible, even though I'm 47 and know that realistically it's not. Lots of times I seem to completely forget I'm 47 and act or plan like I'm 21.

Luckily I don't dress that way anymore. I saw another woman my age wearing clothes too young for her and vowed never again.

Hope is Faith's deceitful little sister.

wish i coulda seen. anyways, my "chance the gardener" viewpoint on hope, is-
i had higher hopes when i was younger and dumber. i hoped i would be a successful adult despite my stunted childhood and adolescence. i hoped that i would finally find my "niche" and live happily ever after. of course, i failed at all of that and more. my decades up to now have been a series of forcefully lowered expectations, hitting bottom and having to dig deeper holes to make new bottoms. now that i have hit rock bottom [several times] i merely hope to minimize my pain and maximise what modest pleasures i can find by the wayside. i hope to the fates to let me keep at least this status-quo. it ain't lifestyles of the rich and famous, but it still beats what the lions' share of the world suffers through. what i do know, is that the total absense of hope fuels much human misery and violence, for hopeless people have nothing to lose so they can do much evil without fear of penalty. like just about anything else in life, you can have too much of just about anything, but there are certain irreducible minimums of things that one must have, including hope. Nietzsche said words to the effect of "if you give a man a why [IOW a reason to hope for a better something], then he can bear almost any how." but if you take away all hope from people, then you would be toying with fate. FDR understood this, and probably saved our nation with his psychic balms of national hope and optimism. OTOH, the smirking big wheels who disrespect OWS and their ilk, with their callous "let them eat taxcuts!" insults, ignore this at their own peril. what happened with the antoinettes could happen again.

I think hope is a sort of poison. Seems nowadays others get the idea that you can simply wish for something good to happen, to fall into their laps or be handed to them on silver platters. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to be depressed or bring others down, though. You simply have to put in real, honest effort and work.