Living in the COVID-19 World and Beyond #4: Hope in the Midst of Bad News

There seems to be a torrent of bad news these days.   Whether it's the ongoing and devastating pandemic with its health, economic, and psychological effects or the ongoing and devastating racism, or the ongoing and devastating climate crisis or … the list goes on … and on.

Given the steady stream of bad news, it is easy to be discouraged day-to-day and full of despair about the future.   I struggle with this, and I suspect that you do too. 

At the same time, I have noticed lately that I’m actually feeling more hopeful more frequently.   

In part, the hopefulness is because when I look inward at myself,  I can see my own growth and development and that is incredibly hopeful to me.   If I can change, then I have to assume that everyone is capable of changing eventually if provided with an external perspective and sufficient support.   

Another part is that I have a few anchors in my life when I know that I felt hopeful and I can go back and revisit those experiences and reconnect authentically with the hopefulness that still resides inside of me (no matter what else is going on in the world).   One such experience for me was in college in the 1970’s.   I was in a relationship with an ardent feminist, there was a women’s center and women’s collective on campus, and there was not really any support system for men.   I pulled together a small group of my best male friends and we met every week and talked about the challenges we were facing and offered each other mutual support to get through them.    It was my 1st experience with a group of men being open and vulnerable with each other, and these men were, each in their own way, leaders at my college fighting for positive changes and they were quite successful.   I left the experience of knowing this group of strong and sensitive men incredibly hopeful about what we would be able to do once we left college, hopeful about the impact that we would have in the broader community.  

Finally, abut 10 years ago I remembered a dream that I had during the night.   In the dream, I was the oldest living person in the world.   I was invited into an elementary school classroom to talk about the old days (now!).   And I told the assembled young people about what things were like – about the vast inequality, that some families lived in huge homes (and had a 2nd or 3rd one) while other families lived in cramped quarters (and some had no residence at all).   I looked out at the faces of the young people and I could see that they were incredulous, that they could not believe me.   So, I continued and provided more details that illustrated the economic inequality that exists now, and as I looked at them, I could see that what I was saying was incomprehensible to them, that it made absolutely no sense to them whatsoever.   And then I realized that at this time in which I was talking with the students, the young people actually had no lived experience of such inequality so of course it was incomprehensible to them – they had no reference point for it.    I feel incredibly thankful that my mind produced that dream one night.  I have remembered and repeated this dream many times.   How can I not be hopeful knowing that this is what I believe the future will look like?

When have you felt hopeful in the past?   What helps you to feel hopeful today?