There are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic about the future right now: wars, climate change, natural disasters, rising authoritarianism, AI, pandemics ... just to name a few. With so many interconnected crises, each of which we are individually powerless to address, it’s natural to want to give up, surrender to fate, and let things run their course — to withdraw from society and all its anxieties.
But as hopeless as things may seem, I remain hopeful. I always will be hopeful, no matter what disaster each day brings. And there is nothing anyone could ever do to take that from me.
I’m not going to offer you a bunch of statistics and facts about why things aren’t as bad as they seem, and I’m not going to give you a list of reasons to be hopeful either because hope is not a reasonable thing. Real hope has nothing to do with the expectation of good things coming our way. It’s not wishful thinking or happy fantasies or thinking we can make good things happen just by wanting them bad enough. And hope also has nothing to do with waiting for heroes or saviors (or political parties or billionaires) to come along and solve all our problems.
I’m not hopeful because the future looks bright. I’m actually quite certain that the struggles of the coming years and decades will ask more of us than we knew we had to give. There will be more extinctions, climate emergencies, wars, famines, water shortages, pandemics, pollution, and attacks on truth, justice and democracy.
But I’m still hopeful, because at its root, hope is nothing more or less than the will to persist regardless of the circumstances. Hope is not a feeling; it’s a decision to engage the world, as it is, with open arms.
Because help isn’t coming. We’re on our own. Which is kind of awesome, because that means that we get to be the heroes of our story. We get to save the day.
And we’d better, because there’s no one else.
Fortunately, hope also has nothing to do with the enormity of the challenges we face or how slim our chances of success. It’s the clarity and peace of mind that come from fighting the good fight, giving it our all, and finding meaning in the struggle.
Hope means not looking away, no matter how bad it gets. The opposite of resignation and passivity, it comprises commitment, action and resolve — something akin to faith. In the words of poet, author and Czechoslovakian President Václav Havel, hope “is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
If you’re not convinced — if you’re still wondering how I can be hopeful given all that confronts us — let me just ask: What else is there? Would you choose the guaranteed defeat of resignation over taking a chance on something better? Would you rather go down without a fight? Be a victim of fate? Or will you commit your life to what you know is right and true regardless of the outcome?
Yes, the future looks bleak, but I’m so in love with this life, and this world, and the things that live upon it. And that love is enough to carry me safely through vast oceans of grief, dread and despair.
I’ll say it again: Hope isn’t waiting for good things to happen. It’s knowing that, together, we can make good things happen. It’s having faith in ourselves to do the work that must be done. And, it’s the knowledge — the trust — that when one of us falters, others will pick up the slack and keep going.
It feels crass to pin down a concept like hope with a tidy definition, but one conception of hope that I find useful is this: Hope is choosing life, over and over, in spite of everything. Like a sprout that pushes through ashes to find the sun, hope is nothing less than our will to live. So if there is love in your heart — if there’s blood in your heart — then there is hope there too.
I can’t promise you a better tomorrow. Life is always filled with disappointment and struggle. But whatever comes, life will prevail. Knowing that truth, down to your bones, is hope.
Urie is a lifelong Idahoan and graduate of the University of Idaho. He lives in Moscow with his wife and two children. You can find his writing on Substack (hopeanyway.substack.com) or you can email him at ryanthomasurie@gmail.com.
