BEEP BEEP BEEP is the sound your 7 a.m. alarm makes, startling you out of your deep sleep and vivid dream.
You roll over to turn it off, leading you to unlock your phone and start scrolling. Regardless of where you’re scrolling, you see bad news after bad news, with all signs pointing to worldwide collapse. Between our country being considered fascist by some, genocides in Gaza and the Congo as well as the frightening effects of climate change, it can be easy to lose all hope.
With each of these issues being at such a large scale, it can make you feel helpless. It’s completely understandable to feel helpless. However, it would not be in anyone’s best interest to act helpless. Losing hope and the drive to make some sort of change guarantees the worst outcome. Having a strong will, especially in these dire times, will give us a fighting chance to make change for the better.
For those of you fighting the urge to become a total pessimist, here are two tips on maintaining hope.
Tip #1: Change your mindset.
This tip could be considered the harder of the two to apply. This requires quite the shift in thinking. In an Oct. 30, 2023 issue of “Time,” Angela Haupt provides some insight on remaining hopeful, with one of those insights being titled “First, give yourself permission to be hopeful.” In this, she refers to David Feldman, a professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University in California.
Feldman argues that whether we have hope or not, we will still face disappointment at some point. However, he doesn’t think the solution is never allowing ourselves to feel hopeful. His concern is that if we give up on hope we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. He claims that if we don't have any hope, we will be setting ourselves up for nothing but disappointment. Instead, if we hold out hope, we are giving ourselves a chance to experience a better future, rather than give ourselves zero chance.
This is exactly what I mentioned earlier. It is important for us to maintain hope regardless of the circumstances, as it gives us a fighting chance instead of just throwing in the towel. If your mindset is that hope is pointless, you’re forgoing any opportunity to see change for the better.
It’s certainly easier said than done, but you should have the mindset that hope is a necessary tool for change and that it’s worth having. Being pessimistic and hopeless gets you nowhere. Being optimistic and hopeful might also get you nowhere, but it’s better to have a little bit of gas in your car than none at all.
Tip #2: Control what you can control.
This tip seems straightforward but it can be applied in so many ways. As individuals, there’s little we can do to contribute to a better world at a global scale. However, there are opportunities in your day-to-day life and within your community to contribute.
At a personal level, you can change the content that you take in. Whether that’s not watching the news or limiting your time on social media, you can filter the entertainment you consume. I still think it’s important to stay in the loop and remain informed. Don’t completely shut yourself off from the outside world. You should ingest important information but not drown in it.
You should also focus on your daily habits and activities. Take care of your body by exercising, drinking water, and eating nutritious meals. Taking care of yourself leads to more happiness, which can lead to feeling more hopeful towards the future. It might also motivate you to get involved.
You can control your involvement within your own community as well. Volunteering is a great way to directly impact the reality around you. Talking and organizing with your neighbors is another great way to connect with your reality. Forming stronger relationships with your neighbors will help build a sense of belonging. This sense of belonging will then provide you with a greater purpose, leading you to become a more hopeful individual.
Ultimately, control what you can control. Work within the limits of your reality. Partake in small, bite-size actions that transform the small world around you into a better place. Over time this will lead to a better world as a whole, strengthening our ability to maintain hope.