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The world feels heavy right now. Many people are moving through their days out of alignment, exhausted, overwhelmed, and unsure about how to make sense of a time that feels shadowed by despair. With so much pain, ill-being, and relentless challenge, we’re witnessing a collective weariness that’s impacting our mental, emotional, and societal well-being.
Conflict and division are deepening. The future feels uncertain. If you’ve turned on the news recently, you understand this.
People are more connected than ever and yet feel increasingly isolated. Mental health challenges are escalating, even as access to information grows. Many feel that the education, healthcare, and government systems meant to support them are failing, leaving them feeling stuck and powerless. People are facing increasing concerns over job insecurity, political polarization, and growing inequality. Workplaces are battling burnout and disengagement. Climate anxiety is rising.
These are some of the uncomfortable truths many people are navigating every day. And through all of this, many of us feel a deep sadness and concern for the suffering all around us and worry for the world we’re handing to the next generation. Most of us do not want to pass on a story constrained by fear, cynicism, or despair.
Under the weight of so much uncertainty, the hope that many people hold is beginning to fray.
And yet, hope is the very thing we need to hold on to. Hope is one of the mightiest contributors to resilience and well-being that we have.
To understand why hope matters, we also need to understand the costs of losing it.
The Costs of Hopelessness
On any given day, so many of us are doing our best to navigate real stressors, real uncertainties, and real complexities in our workplaces, homes, and communities. Add to that a relentless news cycle where we’re met with headlines shouting that the future is bleak, and it becomes easy to see how we can get swept up in the doom-and-gloom and feel as though hope is out of reach.
When people lose hope, the consequences are profound:
- We stop imagining a brighter future.
- We stop recognizing our own strengths, talents, gifts, and potential.
- We stop setting goals.
- We disconnect from meaning and purpose.
- We become more vulnerable to apathy and cynicism.
- Our physical, mental, and emotional well-being decline.
- We begin to believe that the way things are now is the way they will always be.
Hopelessness robs us of our capacity to imagine change, while hope helps us reconnect to possibility, agency, and the belief that brighter days are ahead. This is where hope becomes more than a feeling; it becomes a strategy.
Hope Is a Strategy
Hope is a time-tested strategy for navigating uncertainty, adversity, and everyday life. History has shown us that hope isn’t just an idea; it’s a throughline that has changed lives, started movements, and sustained humanity through its darkest chapters.
Hope doesn’t eliminate conflict or hardship, but it does create space for perspective, courage, compassion, and possibility. It allows us to say: “This is not OK, but somehow, I am OK in this moment, and I trust that better days are ahead.”
Even when so much feels wrong in the world, we keep showing up. We find a way to persist and move forward, even when it’s hard.
Choosing to Live Hope-Filled
Hope is a choice. It inspires us to dream big, set goals, and take meaningful action. It’s a radical practice that keeps us well in a world that often isn’t.
To live hope-filled is to believe that a brighter future is possible for ourselves, for our children, for our communities, and for the world, and that we have agency in shaping it.
Resilience Essential Reads
Here are some gentle prompts to reflect on:
- Where do you notice your hope feeling brightest right now? Where does it feel dim?
- When you think about your biggest hopes right now, for yourself, others, or the world, what themes emerge?
- If your hopes came to pass, how would it feel? What shifts do you notice in your body or emotions when you imagine it?
- What is one small step you could take this week toward one of those hopes?
- What is your hope practice? What helps you remain rooted in hope no matter the noise, negativity, or distraction around you?
So often, we readily envision the worst-case scenarios. It’s only fair to give ourselves time to envision the best ones, too. In a previous post, I shared why hope is more than wishful thinking and some practical ways to begin choosing and cultivating hope.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes bold and forward-facing, other times quiet and grounding, hope steadies us when certainty is gone. Living hope-filled radically changes how we show up and carry ourselves through the hard times.
Our outer world may be turbulent, and our own worlds within may feel fragile, yet we still have the capacity to lean into hope. We can face the realities and injustices of our unwell world without being pulled into inaction or indifference.
My latest book, I Hope So, explores this mighty throughline of hope and how it sustains us, shapes us, and helps us move forward, even when it’s hard. It’s a roadmap for becoming more hope-filled and for passing that hope on to others.
The world needs people who dare to get their hopes up, choose hope on purpose, believe in brighter days ahead, and pass hope on to those who need it most. That is a collective worth building.
