February 8
Cease to hope — and you will cease to fear: the two belong together like prisoners on one chain.
quoted in Seneca, Letter 5
Listening mode
Cease to hope — and you will cease to fear: the two belong together like prisoners on one chain.
Sometimes a rejection is easier to bear than waiting for it. As long as the decision is pending, you examine every sign: how long the answer is taking, how friendly the last sentence sounded. Every reading that gives you heart brings its counter-calculation along with it. When the no finally comes, you are disappointed and at the same time strangely relieved. Something in you is allowed to stop calculating.
This relief can make you suspicious. Did you want the thing less than you thought? Probably not. Hope and dread were simply the same tension, seen from two sides. When one goes, the other goes with it.
It does not follow, though, that you should have let go sooner. Something you no longer expect anything from can no longer frighten you. But it can no longer delight you either. The sleepless hours were part of what the outcome meant to you.
Next time you will be waiting for an answer again. Whether you then wish you hoped less, or only that you heard sooner, is not the same thing.
