When the ship starts to sink, don't pray. Jump.
Hope
Independent of what we believe in, or what we don't believe in, there's one thing we all tend to do - we hope. Yes, hope in life is one of the most important things. We always need to have hope. Hope that things will work out. Hope that we manage to do the right things. Hope that we know what the right things are. Hope that we'll eventually start acting on our beliefs or wishes. Hope that...whatever else. And to have that hope is extremely important. It's what helps us during difficult times in our lives. It's what keeps us going at all times.
However, hope can only take you so far. Once you start putting too much importance in hope, it becomes a belief instead of hope, though you'll still think it's hope for you. Hoping that everything will work out, hoping that everything will go as it's supposed to go, hoping things will become perfect just because it makes sense. It's all good, you should hope that. But hoping without reasonable action is pure stupidity.
Whether we are talking about business, love, or anything else, just hoping for something will only fuck everything up. You can hope only if there's reason to hope. You can hope to be promoted only if you work towards it and push it yourself. You can hope to get a girl only if you actually do something about it. Without the action part, hope is simply for fools.
Jump
And when things are going really badly for you - don't hope they will start getting any better. If you can explain why it should and do it reasonably, maybe the hope is justified. But in all other situations, get off the ship! If you've made an investment which is slowly and surely going to hell, don't pray, sometimes you just need to jump off the boat, sometimes you need to cut your losses right away. As we all know, praying doesn't usually help.
When the ship starts to sink, don't pray. Jump.
