Life is filled with moments where we hope. And where we dream. Hope is believing things will change one day, while dreams are made of moments that start right now. It may sound like semantics, but I have learned to be wary of hope and embrace dreams.

This photo is my mother when she was a teenager. Her face looks full of hope for all that the future will hold. Yet her life became filled with so much sadness and she struggled to come to terms with the grief cast upon her. Her hope for a better life often cost her joy in the moment and many dreams remained unfulfilled.

There are loads of acronyms for hope:

• Hold On Pain Ends
• Have Only Positive Expectations
• Heart Open Please Enter
• Having Outward Positive Vision
• Hold On Pray Everyday

I’m sure we could all make up some more – but that’s not really my point. My point is that hope is holding onto things you want in the future and losing sight of the present.

For five years it felt like my life was hidden behind a veil of darkness and all the hoping in the world could not tear a thread in the fabric. My belief in a better future was almost impossible and my dreams non-existent.

Sometimes that whisper of hope is the only thing left – and at that point, I cling to it like a koala on a tree branch. When pain – physical or psychological – is unbearable, I have to believe that things will change. But my life is not always that dark. Sometimes I hope for the uncontrollable – a green traffic light, a sunny day, a flat tummy. Hope denies my ability to accept the things I cannot change.

I wrote about hope three years ago and I was so enthusiastic. I was hopeful things would change. But it turns out my life got a lot worse before it turned around and holding onto the belief things would be better in the future, kept me stuck in the misery of here and now.

When my life is going along quite nicely – as it has been for a while – hope keeps me focused on the future and wishing things were different. Hope is so painful. No matter how well I am and how good things are right now, there are always things I hope could be different. And that hope leaves me in floods of tears every time. I’ll be happy when this happens. My life will be better when that happens. But what about right now?

HOPE IS INVESTING HAPPINESS IN THE FUTURE

There is an expectation with hope that the thing you want will come true, and until that thing happens you can’t be happy. Dreams on the other hand – dreams are beautiful things. I dream when I’m happy and those dreams fill my heart with joy at the imaginings of another time, place and situation. But they don’t let go of the present moment. I can believe in the possibility of that dream coming true but invest none of my current happiness in that future expectation.

It can be fun to wish upon the stars and I think we all know when our dreams are practical and when they’re fanciful. It is the practical dreams I am talking about – getting a job, recovering from ill health, starting a business, reconnecting with lost loved ones. Recovering from depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal ideation and eating disorders. I have dreamed of these things for so long and I spent many a day hoping things would be different. Then one day I stopped hoping and started doing. From that point, my dreams burst into bubbles of reality. And they continue to do so. I am still building more dreams and I’m still trying not to hope. Life is always a work in progress.

When I hope, I do nothing. I just wish things were different.

When I dream, I do something. I try and make things different.

THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE FOR ME.

If I want happiness right this minute I need to look for it in the here and now – not just hope that things get better. Not just hope that pain ends. When the pain is overwhelming, hope is all I have. But when the pain gets better, I start dreaming of the things I want and invest my energies into making them happen. Dreams allow me the opportunity to picture a different future but make changes in the present to move towards the goal. Dreams are goal-driven and if there’s one thing modern psychology wants to teach us, it’s that we need SMART goals.

There are still things I hope are different – they are the things I cannot control and I wish upon a nightly star that they could change. But wallowing in that hope is miserable.

There are things I dream about and they are the things I can change. Taking a step towards those dreams brings me serenity now. They are the quiet footsteps that bring me peace in the moment.