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Just as the same chain fastens the prisoner and the soldier who guards him, so hope and fear, dissimilar as they are, keep step together; fear follows hope. I am not surprised that they proceed in this way; each alike belongs to a mind that is in suspense, a mind that is fretted by looking forward to the future. But the chief cause of both these ills is that we do not adapt ourselves to the present, but send our thoughts a long way ahead. And so foresight, the noblest blessing of the human race, becomes perverted. Beasts avoid the dangers which they see, and when they have escaped them are free from care; but we men torment ourselves over that which is to come as well as over that which is past. Many of our blessings bring bane to us; for memory recalls the tortures of fear, while foresight anticipates them. The present alone can make no man wretched.

—Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, Letter 5

Hope itself does nothing to effect change; it is the hope that spurs our souls into action that ultimately brings about the change we wish to see in the world.

But if we can spur the soul into action without hope, then we can take a similar—but not the same—pathway towards change, only this time without needing to counteract an underlying fear.