What Oliver Burkeman calls "hope," in his Afterword, I would call wishful or delusional thinking. Whatever you call it, he's right: give it up. Giving up delusions of personal infinitude, he concludes,
"kills the fear-driven, control-chasing, ego-dominated version of you—the one who cares intensely about what others think of you, about not disappointing anyone or stepping too far out of line, in case the people in charge find some way to punish you for it later… the "you" that remains is more alive than before. More ready for action, but also more joyful, because it turns out that when you're open enough to confront how things really are, you're open enough to let all the good things in more fully, too, on their own terms, instead of trying to use them to bolster your need to know that everything will turn out fine. You get to appreciate life in the droll spirit of George Orwell, on a stroll through a war-dazed London in early 1946, watching kestrels darting above the grim shadows of the gasworks, and tadpoles dancing in roadside streams, and later writing of the experience: "Spring is here, even in London N1, and they can't stop you enjoying it."
The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short. But that isn't a reason for unremitting despair, or for living in an anxiety-fueled panic about making the most of your limited time. It's a cause for relief. You get to give up on something that was always impossible—the quest to become the optimized, infinitely capable, emotionally invincible, fully independent person you're officially supposed to be. Then you get to roll up your sleeves and start work on what's gloriously possible instead."
— Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
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