an enemy in hope

being an avid fan of the show injustice, i can't help but remember an episode that occured early on in the series where the man behind bars said, "hope is my enemy."
there are few things that i want to experience in my life and living without hope is one of those things. i went through a period post-graduation where i ran very low on hope and that is a level of unhappiness that was unbearable, because i couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. but on the other hand, what if hope is also my enemy? giving myself false hope for something that may or may not happen can lead to an even bigger heart break than not hoping. where is the balance?
this weekend i couldn't help but think about how evil can work in hope and today my pastor said it best when we take things that we believe will be self-gratifying and begin to idolize them over God. we idolize self-interest. so then why do we have hope?
dictionary.com defines 'hope' as, "to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment." people hope to win the lottery, but do they really expect it to be fulfilled? i feel like i almost become so focused on my expectations being fulfilled that i lose track of everything that is important in my life.
when i refer to hope i mean it in every part of my life from hoping that i get a job, hoping that i don't get sick, etc. as i mentioned in a previous post, i am learning how much i am striving towards things that immediately satisfy my selfish wants as opposed to long-term investment in my actual needs. what is my hope is not in all reality hope at all, it's just the evil in selfishness coming to surface while what i really should have hope for is shadowed behind the clouds that i have created.
so when the man on "injustice" described hope as being his worse enemy, i can sympathize, because we can idolize our hopes so much that it puts us in our own prison. we can have our hopes and dreams, but when they cross the line to where it consumes us that is when our hope becomes an enemy. and from being a christian i am learning that the best thing to do with my hope prior to it's transition into something dangerous is to just give it to God because He can control it more than i can.
but i am still learning and probably will be for the rest of my life. but in the end, it makes me less scared to have hope :)