As a child growing up in a violent home, I often wished and prayed for peace and safety. I thought I was hopeful; I had learned in church that the Lord wanted us to be hopeful. It wasn’t until years later, when I started my practice of couples therapy, that the realization came to me. I had conflated hoping and wishing. I wished that my life would get better.

The distinction between hoping and wishing is important. When we seem to feel “hopeless,” we’ve spent too much mental energy wishing.

Wishing seems to be about the future, but it’s embedded in present feelings and memories of losses, pain, and mistakes. The degree to which wishing is tied to memories is apparent in the frequent use of the word to mean the same as regret:

“I wish I’d prepared more.”

Hope is about the future, about how we want to be in the world, with a sense that we can do something to become the person we want to be. Hope sails on a sea of values. Wishes are about preferences and feelings.

Adults who no longer hope or wish risk sinking into despair. But most avoid the depths of despair with ego defense.

Ego defense is less about values, preferences, and feelings than how we want others to think of us. Hope is about doing the right thing; ego defense is about trying to get others........

© Psychology Today