Many classical philosophers were suspicious of hope, and the Stoics had good reason to be. Hope can look like strength because it points toward a desired future, but it can also become a form of dependence: the mind fastening itself to an external outcome and waiting for Fortune to cooperate.
The Stoic objection is not to preferring a favorable outcome. We may prefer health to illness, success to failure, safety to danger, and victory to defeat. The problem begins when preference becomes psychological dependence—when our judgment, composure, or action starts to depend on the future turning out as we want.
Seneca draws the connection between hope and fear directly:
“Cease to hope and you will cease to fear. The primary cause of both these ills is that instead of adapting ourselves to present circumstances we send our thoughts too far ahead.”
—Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 5.7
Hope and fear are linked because both project the mind into an uncertain future. One anticipates receiving what it wants; the other anticipates receiving what it dreads. In either case, the mind risks becoming governed by events that have not happened and may never happen.
That is the distinction I mean here by operational hope.
A Stoic may prefer an outcome and work hard to produce it. What he should not do is allow hope for that outcome to substitute for preparation, distort judgment, delay action, or become necessary for maintaining composure.
The danger is not preference.
The danger is when hope becomes operational.
The Stoic focuses on what is within his control while preparing himself to meet what is not. We may strongly prefer a favorable outcome and work deliberately to produce it, but we do not make our composure dependent upon receiving it, nor do we neglect preparation because we “hope for the best.”
If something is within your control, act. If an outcome is not, prepare yourself to meet it. Beyond that, accept what occurs without confusing an unfavorable external with a moral evil.
“Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.”
—Epictetus, Enchiridion, §8
“If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.47
The problem with operational hope is that it can become a substitute for preparation. “Hoping for the best” is harmless if we are simultaneously doing everything reason requires. It becomes dangerous when hope reassures us that preparation is unnecessary, delays action, or encourages us to believe that a favorable outcome will somehow compensate for our failure to prepare.
Strategic Stoicism demands something harder. Prepare for the unfavorable outcome precisely because you do not control whether it occurs. Build the competence, resilience, resources, and physical and mental capacity necessary to remain effective if circumstances deteriorate. Then pursue the outcome you prefer without needing it to occur.
“The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.20
Preparation does not guarantee success, nor does resilience make Fortune irrelevant. The point is to reduce the unnecessary power circumstances can exercise over your ability to act well. Musonius Rufus understood that even physical preparation belongs within this larger discipline:
“For obviously the philosopher’s body should be well prepared for physical activity, because often the virtues make use of this as a necessary instrument for the affairs of life.”
—Musonius Rufus, Lectures, 6
The Stoic does not prepare because he expects the worst. He prepares because the outcome is not his to command.
Hope cannot create capability. Preparation can.
Modern usage often collapses hope and optimism into the same thing. We tell people to “have hope” and “stay optimistic” as though both require believing that the future will turn out favorably. In that sense, a person who has “lost hope” is assumed to have lost optimism as well.
That is not the distinction I am making here.
For the Stoic, optimism need not mean confidence that events will go well. It can mean confidence that you can meet events well.
Stoic confidence does not come from hope. It comes from preparation.
If I have trained my judgment, strengthened my body, developed useful skills, built reserves, rehearsed adversity, and disciplined myself to act according to reason rather than fear, then I have grounds for confidence even when the likely outcome is unfavorable. I do not need to believe that Fortune will cooperate. I need to know that I have prepared myself to respond when it does not.
This is why Stoic optimism, properly understood, is compatible with pessimistic forecasting. I may believe that the odds are poor. I may expect the plan to fail. I may anticipate loss, hardship, or defeat. None of that requires despair.
Marcus Aurelius puts the distinction precisely:
“You must build up your life action by action, and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible—and no one can keep you from this. But there will be some external obstacle! Perhaps, but no obstacle to acting with justice, self-control, and wisdom.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.32
The external outcome may be blocked. Virtuous action remains available. That is the source of Stoic confidence. Marcus returns to the same idea elsewhere when he reminds himself that the events we fear are not aberrations in the structure of life:
“Everything which happens is as familiar and well known as the rose in spring and the fruit in summer; for such is disease, and death, and calumny, and treachery, and whatever else delights fools or vexes them.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.44
Disease, loss, betrayal, failure, and death are not violations of the human condition. They are part of it. The Stoic does not become optimistic by pretending otherwise.
He becomes confident by preparing accordingly.
So prefer the favorable outcome. Work for it. Plan for it. Use every rational means available to achieve it. But do not confuse preference with dependence, and do not confuse hope with preparation.
If the outcome goes well, use it. If it goes badly, meet it.
The Strategic Stoic does not need to believe that everything will work out. He prepares so that, whatever happens, he can still act well.
That is a harder form of optimism.
And it requires no hope at all.
He is lucky who realizes that ‘luck’ is the point where preparation meets opportunity.—Youth’s companion: Volume 86 (1912)
Expanded answer to the reflective question? Haha good stuff brother.
Just did a collaborative piece on James Stockdale, one of my favorite modern Stoics. He told Jim Collins that it was the optimists who died first as prisoners but went on to describe them as people who had fleeting hope. Like you said, people intertwine these two words when they mean very different things as you’ve beautifully described. I’ve still come to use the term realistic optimism when speaking on the benefits of will and belief in yourself.
Powerful and what I would imagine will be controversial piece to some. I very much enjoy your writing style 👊🏻