Do you remember that song "I wish" by Skee-lo?

I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her

I just got a comment that brings in what is probably one of the most attractive (and frustrating) as well as the point that affects retention the most on the platform, something I have written about before, hope.

Your earnings can go to almost 0 or they can bloat up. I guess that's the most attractive part of it.
@bescouted

It is attractive and retentive, isn't it?

"I hope I win the lottery"

Don't we all? ... even when we haven't entered.

But hope is a massive driver and it is something that can be used to affect our will and resilience, as when we have hope, we find the power to go on - and it is only the hopeless who give up. I am not just talking about Hive in this regard, just in general. I would predict that many survivors who endured long term misery did so because they had hope that they would make it out of the situation and be better off for it.

On Hive, we hope that Hive price hits the moon and the stars, but not before we have hoped that we were able to buy a mountain of it at a low price. Often, two people are going to have conflicting hopes, so when hopes are met - one is going to be disappointed.

But the "lottery effect" does influence much of our thinking here quite heavily, especially when it comes to getting gains, whether they are short-term hopes like a big vote on a post or long-term hopes like price pushing deep into the double digit dollar territory and making our bag worth something. We hope to benefit, we hope that we can overcome some of the problems we face, we hope that one day, Hive will be a place that supports us, that empowers us, that can provide for us what we hope for.

It might be votes, it might be comments, it might be shares - but in general, these things are all feedback mechanisms, recognition that what we have done has some kind of affect on our surroundings, that it wasn't for nothing.