Hope isn’t some kind of unlimited resource one can just tap into at will (it’s marketed that way, but you will eventually see through the ad copy).  Hope works more like a credit card.  It gives you premature (and often badly needed) sustenance.  The catch is that you are are borrowing against the thing hoped for.  If the thing hoped for disappears, you are hit with an overdraft of despair.

Hope becomes a predatory lender for those who have very little of it to begin with.  Just as the poor get the worst terms when borrowing money, those with little hope generally do poorly with the hope they do have.  The hope-poor have two things going against them.

• The actors and situations in the lives of the hope-poor (not surprisingly) are not not conducive to putting one’s hope in
• The hope-poor are extremely vulnerable.  The little hope they do have is of extreme value to them.  When it gets shattered the consequences can be terrible.  This is why many with little hope claim they are hopeless because not spending their hope is often the wisest thing one could do given their circumstances (the catch here is often hope works behind your back–you unconsiously put your hope in someone or something)