I told a friend recently that I fear I’m becoming cynical. She said, “Yeah, cynicism is so easy. Having hope is hard work”. Mic drop moment.
This adventure of humanity is fraught with peril and possibility, often both at once. In facing the journey ahead, we can struggle to find the middle path between hope and despair.
I seem to pendulate between these polarities. War and peace. Truth and uncertainty. The doom and the roses. But life is rarely in black and white. Most of the time, we exist in the gradations between extremes.
Hope is a complex landscape. And it’s necessary to navigate the territory with courage. Lest we collapse in misery, or worse, cover our eyes shouting “I’m fine! Everything is fine!”
Hope is different to optimism.
Hope is not the belief that everything will go well. Because we know that’s untrue. People die. Civilisations fall. Even stars burn out. One of the conditions of life is that bad things happen, and it ends. However, that is not the whole story. If we only focus on destruction, it’s a steep descent into despair.
As Roshi Joan Halifax says, it doesn’t serve anyone to peddle futility.
The finest breeds of hope require seeing things clearly, and at the same time, cultivating a sensitivity to moral beauty. Then hope becomes a way to live with integrity in the absence of certainty. To give your heart enough momentum to keep moving towards what matters.
Garnered from zen masters, wise teachers, my friends at Human.Kind, and me. May this list help you spot these species of hope out in the wild. And in yourself.
The ‘close your eyes and make a wish’ variety. An almost ignorant optimism that disengages from involvement in creating the desired outcome. It is absolved from responsibility. Perhaps involving a belief that somebody else will do it. It may arise from denial, or apathy, or a bubble of privilege that is blind to the work required to create change.
This is a perilous breed of hope due to its hands off approach. It stays at a comfortable distance from the difficulty. Often looking away from what is needed and focusing only on the ideal outcome, even when unrealistic. As the great Joanna Macy says, “Of all the dangers we face, none is so great as the deadening of our response.”
Active Hope is something we do rather than have. It involves finding a skillful response, within our scope, to whatever is happening. Like David Orr says, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up”.
Science backs the positive effects of active hope for mental health. Action is an antidote to despair. Even though nobody can do everything, doing anything is better than nothing. Taking tangible steps that make an impact, no matter how small, is a way to create agency and build empowerment.
I think Triton sets a great example. In the face of our extinction crisis and biodiversity loss, he created a landcare revegetation project (Myponga). When he gets sad, he goes and works in the soil, plants seeds, and watches the black cockatoos fly by. Active hope has its eyes wide open and hands dirty.
Zen master Suzuki Roshi once said that life is “like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.” Deep down we know this, but it’s a tough pill to swallow. Remedial hope is a subtle, ordinary sort that can soothe the anxiety of our everyday suffering. It’s in the tiny delights that remind us that life is also mysterious and exquisite.
You can find it in bird’s nests, children’s books, flower buds, new seedlings, kittens, 50th wedding anniversaries, and smiling at strangers who smile back. It serves us a brief relief, a momentary emotional refuge. This breed of hope is in stark contrast to today’s news cycle and the doomscroll algorithm. The other day Adam Whiting said hope is an endangered species, I think he meant this type. We must all remain vigilant for any sightings in the wild.
If we get overly preoccupied with the future, obsessing over what is yet to come, we end up neglecting the present. This is how Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh describes tragic hope.
At its core, hope is based on desire. In Buddhist psychology, clinging to any outcome or expectation is risky business. It means we delay our contentment until a certain future arrives where our wishes are fulfilled. Of course, the irony is that the only place we can change how we feel, our only point of power, is in the present moment.
Tragic hope is a form of suffering that robs us from living our life in the here and now. Contentment only comes when we let go of clinging to the desperation of how we want things to be, and finally meet things as they are.
Everything will change, in ways we cannot know for sure. Wise hope is staying connected to both uncertainty and curiosity. It recognises the crazy conceit of thinking that we are entirely in control of what happens next. Coined by Roshi Joan Halifax, this breed of hope invites us to see the truth of impermanence.
It’s not about denying the perils we are in today. Wise hope is holding the long view and staying open to curiosity above certainty, letting the true arc of possibility inspire our actions.
For example, during a drought optimism says not to worry about it, rain will come soon, everything will be fine. Pessimism suggests we’re all going to die. Wise hope is the one that plants some seeds anyway, just in case eventually, they get a chance to grow.
Plot twists are everywhere. Stay open.
I saw this on a t-shirt once (thanks Brian) and it spurred a whole philosophy for me.
Talking about joy and the apocalypse at The Lean In, wearing my post hope shirt.
Post hope is a way to liberate our actions from attachment to their outcome. Leaving us free to act without desperation or distress. Our actions become their own reward. Not because they will solve the problem or fix the issue, but because they are the right thing to do. Post hope is motivated by the opportunity to embody the most life affirming response to the times we find ourselves in.
Consider the activists who devote their life to a cause that fails. Fighting to protect an ancient forest then watching it logged and destroyed. Decades advocating for reproductive rights, then seeing them revoked in one fell pen-stroke. When things get bleak, ordinary hope can seem too saccharine.
Post hope helps us stay resilient in the face of disappointment. Instead of acting for the future, we act in service to moral beauty, as an intentional participant in the dance of life. We take the widest view, letting go of the need for things to be better in order to be buoyant. Post hope allows us to stay in the fray without losing heart.
What do all these species of hope teach us?
What you do matters. In ways you cannot yet know or see. And you can trust this not-knowing. Let uncertainty be a refuge.
Adaptability is born from an openness to meet things as they are. Not clinging to any imagined future, whether you believe it will be better or worse than the present.
A life of moral beauty invites you to live congruently with what you know matters deeply. Hold that in your heart and keep letting it guide you, whatever happens.
Because it makes sense to do these things. To protect forests, or fight for women’s rights, trans rights, or rally for those caught in the terrors of war, bear witness to the dying, hold politicians to account. Have the brave conversation, educate your children, sign petitions, cook food for eachother, and give love to as many as you can.
We can never know how things will turn out, but something deep inside us knows what to do.
May hope be a medicine for you in these times.
Hopefully yours,
Tessa Leon
