Fear lurks in my everyday life: war, famine, a crisis in the cost of living, governments turning their backs on the most vulnerable, inhumane refugee policies, the rise of the far right in Europe, the climate crisis.
I know this isn’t the first time in human history that everything has nearly gone wrong, but that knowledge doesn’t necessarily bring me peace.
As a young, white person from a middle-class background, I feel like it’s my responsibility to honor the privilege I’ve been given, but it all feels a bit futile, like walking up a hill in knee-deep mud. What do we do? And how do we find the courage to do it?
Questions have been edited for length.
Eleanor says: Like you, I am prone to despair when I consider the state of the world. Sometimes, despair at how the arc of the universe really is bent. Sometimes, even worse, despair at each other. My misanthropy has so deflated my expectations that I no longer marvel.
So what do we do? Small things. You know the answer: build community, help who you can, be trustworthy. But how do we find the courage to do that? That’s a much harder problem. The problem, you see, is that despair seems perfectly rational, yet incredibly hard to resolve. It’s like trying to muster yourself to plant a tiny, fragile sapling when you’re 99% sure a thunderstorm is on the way. Why do it when there’s a good chance nothing will come of it?
It’s easy to think of hope as a cause we can find in the world – a vote, a petition, a recycling bin – any sign of change. Where can we see light in the darkness?
There are places to look for these things (like this uplifting good news bulletin), but I think a more interesting way to respond is to turn things around: hope isn’t something you feel when you see good signs. Because I decided to have hope You see a glimmer of hope. So hope isn’t just a matter of what you think will happen. It’s also a matter of what you pay attention to and where you spend your mental time. And it’s up to you, more than it is the state of the world.
Indeed, from one point of view, we Better Let us choose to nurture hope rather than wait for it, for that is the only way we will stand up for those who are far worse off than we are. If we owe it to them not to give up the fight, if we allow our resolve to be corroded by despair, then we would do well for them, too, not to throw up our hands in a numbing thought that “nothing will change.”
For me, thinking of it this way makes it much easier to maintain hope and optimism — not as something you feel after the evidence is in, but as a hard thing you can do for others. As activist Tom Ammiano says, “Some people think of hope as a fleeting emotion, but hope is about getting back up after being knocked down.”
Some people find a reason to keep going, when there are so many reasons to fall into nihilism. Each of us who sinks into defensive despair instead is one less person they meet, one less sign that there are others out there who feel the same way they do.
That’s going to be very hard. All this reframing doesn’t really change the fact that a lot of your efforts will go unrewarded. But maybe it’s a start. Instead of aiming to change these huge global problems, aim to do small things that may or may not make a difference. Join a protest, offer to help out at a local mutual aid group, volunteer somewhere new. Are doing Striving without expecting success fuels the engine of hope.