"So foolish is the heart of man that he ever puts his hope in the future, learning nothing from his past errors and fancying that tomorrow must be better than today"

Human beings are chronically inclined toward optimism about the future, often despite repeated evidence from their own history that such hope can be misguided or even naive. The heart, representing human emotion and desire, is seen as foolish because it ignores the wisdom gained from personal experience. Individuals frequently repeat prior mistakes, failing to internalize their lessons, driven by an instinctive belief that circumstances will naturally improve. The hope for a better tomorrow becomes almost a reflex or a habit, not necessarily grounded in logical analysis of past outcomes or real change in circumstances.

This tendency stems from the fundamental human need for hope. Living in the present, especially when stained by past failures or disappointments, can be painful or oppressive. By placing faith in the future, people escape the burden of responsibility for prior wrongdoing, and momentarily elude the discomfort that reflection and accountability may bring. The mind clings to imagined change as a remedy for very real present dissatisfaction. Such thinking may provide comfort, but it blinds individuals to the patterns of their own behavior and the true causes of their unhappiness.

Mika Waltari’s observation cuts through the veneer of optimism, warning that hope divorced from introspection and self-understanding amounts to self-delusion. Expecting a better tomorrow without transforming one’s habits or perspectives guarantees repetition of the same disappointments. Real change demands honesty about failures, a willingness to learn, and active engagement with the lessons embedded in the past. Otherwise, hope itself becomes a form of denial, a distraction that postpones reckoning and sustains the very cycles of error and longing it tries to dissolve. True wisdom lies in integrating past experience with present action, forging a future not from wishful thinking, but from conscious, courageous change.