Hope is the opiate of the masses

One great thing, atleast as far as my fundamentals go, that came out of the current fiscal crisis is that people finally realize, or lets hope they did, that hope is hopeless. All you hear of these days are dreams crushed, aspirations falsified and hope faltering. The main reason I believe, for the current grand crisis emerging before the developed world, is that people had great, almost delusional, hope. Everyone believed life could go on effortlessly as it had been, that everything "will get better" someday. Someday we will achieve world peace and prosperity and every man and woman would fulfill his/her dreams. You see, people tend to, for some reason beyond my understanding, believe that somehow the future will always be better. If not better, than at least sustainable, and so everyone lived without any preparation for days like this.
I, on the other hand, being cynical and sarcastic in nature, have never had hope. I have never hoped that one day ill have a big mansion, hope that i will pass a test i wasnt prepared for, hoped that somehow ill acquire great sums of money, hope ill lead a peaceful and great life, and so will the rest of the world. Never. To me, hope is absolutely arbitrary and baseless. I am usually a bit more realistic about life. You know, planning ahead, and then acting on that preparation. Dont get me wrong, I have screwed plenty of times in my life, and will do so numerable times again in life. But i guarantee i will never be surprised by an unfortunate event, as, like i stated earlier, i dont hope for the better. Lets just hope the world, especially the middle class - those are the worst you see, as unlike the utterly hopeless poor class, these middle class men somehow propagate the notion of hope; they believe they too can move up the ladder and join the elite in the festivities, they are the ones who usually blow the biggest bubble. Well, welcome back to earth peeps.