What's the Point of Hope?

I was at Macalester College in Minnesota this past week, speaking to students about hope and light and optimism. It’s a message I love sharing and have offered dozens of times, and it feels especially important in this moment. The event was organized with such thought and care, attentive to the fact that the semester was just starting and many students were worried about where our world is and where it might go.

I shared stories and ideas and insights, many of which I had shared before. The messages seemed to resonate. The audience was engaged and nodding, and we had a wonderful conversation during the Q&A session.

After the event, we had an informal reception, where students and alums ate dinner, and I signed books while chatting with them. It was a lovely conversation. The students were so earnest and thoughtful. What stuck with me was a longer conversation at the end of it.

A student came and asked a question that she had clearly been grappling with: “I understand that hope is a good thing,” she said. “But is it enough? What’s the point if it doesn’t change anything?”

Her question was challenging and provocative, and a few of us took turns reflecting and offering our thoughts. I’ve been thinking about her question more and more this week, as executive orders have come out left and right, decimating the stability that so many of us have lived with and enjoyed.

What’s the point of hope?

Here are a few brief reflections, some that I shared with the student last week, and some that I’ve been thinking about in the days since.

I begin by agreeing with the student’s premise. Hope alone is not enough. A flimsy sense of hope, built on a flimsy foundation, cannot endure. We can tell ourselves that things will be fine and that life will improve, but that can only sustain us for so long. At some point, when things aren’t fine and when life doesn’t improve, we can’t just be positive, or put a silver lining on the shitstorm all around us.

Hope without substance is self-delusion.

So what does substantive and enduring hope look like? And what can it do for us?

Here’s a small axiom to capture how I’ve been thinking about it: Despair breeds passivity. Hope inspires action.

When I feel hopeless, I find it difficult to engage. I ask myself what the point is of trying. In all honesty, I have trouble getting motivated enough to even answer that initial question. In these moments of feeling overwhelmed, including in recent moments, I find myself stepping back, sitting down, giving in.

Despair breeds passivity.

Hopefulness, on the other hand, unleashes a different kind of energy. I stand up, step forward, motivated and inspired to help make the world better. Hopefulness, at its best, unlocks creative action, energizing us to engage.

Hope inspires action. Hope unlocks agency.

I’m not here to say that we should just fabricate hope when the world feels bleak. I don’t think it’s healthy to ignore, or deflect, or pretend. And it doesn’t really serve us, either. What’s worse than telling ourselves a lie, to be comforted by it for a few moments, and then to have face the truth eventually? What’s the point of setting ourselves up for a fall.

But to me, that’s not what hope is, nor is that what hope is about. To me, hope is about finding a purpose. It’s about making meaning, and then utilizing that meaning to make change.

Hope on its own may not be enough to save us, but perhaps leaning into hope can help drive the change that we need to make, for ourselves and for our world.