Of course, we should all hope for the best, but we should as well look at the other side of the coin !
The hope can push us to reach our goals. It can be the incentive to become better, and that's the positive side. But we should look as well at the negative one. Because not all those who hope for something, realize it. If the hope is not accompanied by actions, nothing will change and the hope will be just worthless. I think the hope is just a spark that leads to fire. The fire of being excited to achieve what we want. We shouldn't consider it that important, because if we only hope without doing nothing, we will keep being in stagnation.
But if we talk about hope as a feeling, it's a great one. Without it, we wouldn't do a lot of great things. It's related to our wishes somehow. So, we hope for different things based on our needs. Hope can be related as well as dream. The dream is what we want it to come true, we hope that will be realized. But again, we shouldn't only dream of something, but do what needed to be done to get there. As well, we should hope for reasonable things. We should be realistic. If we hope for the impossible, we will just waste time acting. We should hope only for what's possible to happen. That's in case we are completely materialists.
But if we believe in other power, like god, universe and karma, the meaning of hope could change. Here, the laws of physics couldn't be appliable. In this case, we may see some magic happen. For example, hoping for the peace on the world, or the authorities change their minds about decisions they took. There are things we can't change, and even they couldn't. There are things that are more powerful than people. Take the nature for example. Or the processes that happen in our bodies. That what makes people imperfect. We do what we can, and it's up to the circumstances to get what we hoped for or not.
But in the end, I would say that hope is more of a positive thing.
Hope may inspire us, motivate us and make us better !
Hope definitely keeps people alive even if we are not aware of the fact we hope for something. The hope to be home soon, not being bullied, the cat won't pee on the doormat, to have some time to take a bath, the sun will shine or Winter won't be too cold. If you take all hope, small or big, away life would be a hell.
It's an emotion we need to survive. To catch that big fish if not today tomorrow, next week or in three years.