Hope is the most powerful force in the universe besides time, tectonic shifts, volcanoes, acid, and certain sharks. Steel is also more powerful. It can hold up buildings. Can hope hold up buildings? Unfortunately no. Disease is also more powerful. No one was ever cured through hope. Despair is sometimes more powerful. That is entirely up to you. How much weight you give to hope and how much to despair cannot change much in the way of outcomes, but it will change your experien ce of those outcomes completely.