Hope has played a big role in keeping me alive all of my adult (and some of my adolescent) life.
I figure I have the brain of an economist or management accountant (though I am not one and don’t wish to be, so the economists and management accountants reading this may feel free to disparage the analogy). My life calculus is constantly between cost and benefit. The difficulty lies in measuring the costs and benefits for others, because I know the costs far outweigh the benefits if the scope is limited to me. I don’t wish to limit the scope though — that’s pretty selfish, and that’s not something I wish to be. I do consider, though, that it is easy to discount the benefits for others in one’s own life, and thus the costs of not being around any more. This I know.
Hope has been the hand on the scales that always tips them in the balance of keeping going.
But hope in itself is inevitably discounted by age, isn’t it? Put it this way: if everything were exactly the same, except I was 95 years old, what value should be put on hope?
I am not 95 years old, and though I shan’t disclose here my age here rest assured it is considerably less than that by a matter of more than a few decades. But lately my economist brain is whispering to me: what is the discounting function for hope in relation to age?
Hopefully I have another therapist lined up soon, and that’s a question I’ll be asking him once the appointment is made and realised. Until then, it’s just something my mind will keep crunching on…
