Chasing Hope
A conversation with New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof
It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed. The changes are coming so swiftly, and they’re so hard to comprehend. It seems like the world as we know it is being decimated.
Hope is hard right now. Almost impossible, if you ask me.
This is why I’ve loved this new book, Chasing Hope, by Nicholas Kristof. He’s a two time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a New York Times Opinion Columnist, and he has witnessed and covered some of the most deadly crises on this planet, from famines and humanitarian crises to wars and genocides.
As I read his book, I couldn’t help but see that if he could have hope while witnessing all this suffering, then maybe I could, too. It was a powerful realization and one that really helped me. I wanted to sit with Nick and discuss the significance of his life and work—and he graciously agreed.
In our conversation, and in his book, Nick draws on extraordinary stories that he has covered, and he addresses the motivations that keep him moving forward. He reminds us of the resilience and courage of individuals who persist in the face of unimaginable adversity. And he reveals how even the smallest actions can ripple outward, creating profound change amid the vast challenges of our time.
I’ll provide an excerpt of our conversation below. You can also click here to listen to the full conversation on Wisdom & Practice.
Simran Jeet Singh: What drives you to continue doing this reporting? I mean, you're at a stage in your career where you could retire. I imagine you could do any number of things, many of which would be much more comfortable. You wouldn't have risk to your family, you wouldn't have risk to your colleagues, and also it seems to me as I look out at the world, like, it doesn't always feel like we're making change or we're making progress. And sometimes it feels like we're going backwards.
Nicholas Kristof: So you have to believe that the reporting makes a difference, and I do believe that.
I do think there were hundreds of thousands of lives saved because of journalism. That village where I first saw those girls being auctioned off for their virginity, um, that trafficking hub has been closed down.
And so, you know, you don't always see that. It doesn't always work. I wrote a lot about AIDS and it felt like that was something where my reporting didn't have much impact. I was in the West Bank last week and I just think that situation there is probably going to get worse before it gets worse.
Simran Jeet Singh: Your memoir is called Chasing Hope and, part of what that signals to me is there's some intention behind it. Hope doesn't just fall on your lap. Yes, there's also a sense of it might be elusive sometimes, there might be times that you felt hopeless, including in some of the examples you just gave.
I wonder what is it when you are not finding hope, or when you're looking for hope, how do you do that?
Nicholas Kristof: I think of hope as a little bit like a muscle that you work on and that it improves your sense of self efficacy, improves your mental outlook, and that hope can be self fulfilling. And over the last 20 years or so, there's actually been pretty good social science research on this degree to which hopelessness is self fulfilling, but hopefulness, but hope itself is also self fulfilling.
There was one social science experiment in social psychology that had people every day do something really simple.I think it was to write down three good things that had happened that day. And it turned out to have a remarkable impact on their happiness and sense of self efficacy. And, you know, people always think that they're going to be happy if they get a lot more money or win the lottery or whatever.
And, you know, money can help and winning the lottery wouldn't hurt, but recognizing the luck and good fortune that we already enjoy and acknowledging it, I think is also a really powerful way to improve our wellbeing.
Simran Jeet Singh: Is that something you do?
Nicholas Kristof: You know, that was a fascinating experiment, but I do think I have a pretty good capacity to recognize the positive around me.
Simran Jeet Singh: Mm. Has that always been the case for you since childhood, would you say? That you've had an ability to balance, you know, what you're seeing in the world as good and as hard at the same time?
Nicholas Kristof: I think, um, it may come from my mom and dad, and my dad in particular. You know, he survived World War II, uh, you know, his family was an Armenian family in Eastern Europe. They spied on the Nazis, they got caught, they fled in every direction. He was in concentration camps, and he took risks. And he navigated his way through that, I think, because he did have a sense of hope, that sense of self efficacy, that he could manage these things and figure out a way through. And it didn't always work great, but he, you know, he eventually did get to the U.S.
And I think that was fundamentally driven by a sense of hope and purpose. And I think, you know, maybe that was brain chemistry. Maybe that was the way he was raised, but whether it was nurture or nature, I think I did absorb some of that from him.
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