I did this little self-experiment a while back…..I tried to be hopeless. Now I don’t want to be flippant about this because I know from my own life experience and from my experience as a therapist that having hope and not having hope mostly doesn’t feel like a choice. Hopelessness, in fact, is a diagnostic feature of clinical depression and a major factor in people taking their own lives. So I say what I am about to write with the utmost respect for the grim seriousness of hopelessness.
As it was, I had a good dose of hope on board at the time of my self-experiment so I was able to explore hopelessness without getting tangled up in it. My experience was an immediate sense of an inner light being turned right down and a dimness and drabness descending on my being. A despair even. This led me to look more deeply into the different perspectives on hope that could be useful to consider.
We know that we live in an age of polycrises, a tangled knot of crises- environmental, economic, societal, geopolitical, financial, technological- that span global systems. Challenges and conflicts might weigh down our personal lives, too, so the question becomes: Is there anything we can or even should still hope for?
Not, according to Meg Wheatley, prolific author, academic and management consultant, who warns of ‘the addiction to hope’, ‘the drug of hope’ and ‘hope that serves as denial from the immensity of the irreversible destruction of planet, peoples, species and the future’. Wheatley seems to regard hope a folly, a misguided notion that the world can be saved, and a collective blindness to the irreversibility of the damage already done. ‘Hopium’, she calls it, an addiction to false hopes as a form of denial.
Here is another perspective. The Bible proclaims; “Without a vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). If ‘vision’ means hope, this proverb is a strong vote for it. Is it a universally accepted position among Christians though? Trappist monk, theologian and mystic Thomas Merton advocates the abandonment of a certain kind of hope clearly in the ‘Letter to a Young Activist’. He writes: ‘Do not depend on the hope of results. As you get used to this idea you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.
However, hope has a very different place in the experience of others. The small but potent book ‘ Man’s Search for Meaning’ (V. Frankl) is a tribute to hope and the human spirit that is buoyed by hope’s presence or defeated when hope moves beyond reach. Frankl, a psychologist imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis wrote: ‘The prisoner who had lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold.’ As one who was both violated by the limitless brutalities of his jailers and vowed to be a clear-eyed witness to the atrocities, holding on to hope became Frankl’s most central survival tool.
Czech writer, philosopher, political dissident, and statesman, Václav Havel, takes a more wholistic if not spiritual position on hope. He writes: ‘Hope is a dimension of the soul, an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed ‘. This last sentence, in particular, shifts hope out of the arena of ‘wishful thinking’ and optimism, and into an ethical position of commitment, held without expectation or even desire for a successful outcome.
As part of the self-experiment, I have observed the ebbs and flows of hope in my daily life, asking myself, is hope present or absent right now? And if it is present, or absent, what is the flavour of my life in this moment? What I have found is that hope is a constant undercurrent and if I will it away, life begins to feel bleak. As already mentioned, hopeless is often a feature of psychological distress and disorders and while it is not listed as a standalone criterion for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) it is closely associated with several of its symptoms such as depressed mood, feeling of worthlessness and suicidal ideation. The significance of hope in psychological wellbeing is widely accepted and is an important part of many therapeutic conversations.
In Buddhism, hope is a more ‘troublesome’ notion. Buddhist teachings invite us to reside mostly in the present moment, to know impermanence deeply and to cultivate an ethical, wise and contemplative life that leads to karmic merit but, perhaps akin to Havel’s stance, asks us to give up all desire for or attachment to an outcome. No expectation for a particular outcome means no suffering due to disappointment.
The Zen master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi once said that life is ‘like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.’ Not a particularly cheerful notion nor one that inspires hope but we can see its truth. So is there any room for hope in the teachings of the Buddha? Buddhist teacher, social activist and author Roshi Joan Halifax, not giving up on the importance of hope in life altogether, speaks of wise hope, hope that is not based on optimism and the idea that everything will turn out well. Roshi Joan explains: ‘wise hope is born of radical uncertainty, rooted in the unknown and the unknowable.’ Buddhist scholar and ecophilosopher Joanna Macy offers guidance on cultivating ‘active hope’ as the engaged expression of wise hope, putting the emphasis on hope as an alive, dynamic and action-focussed way of living. Buddhism inspires to bring a beginner’s mind to living, an intention that helps to see that everything is in flux, always, yet reminds that the choices we make and how we live life in this moment matter to the now and in the long run.
Looking at hope from various perspectives it seems clear that not all hope is the same. Hope is an important ingredient in mental wellbeing, it fuels motivation, creativity and a positive experience of everyday life. However, hope for a specific future goal can be problematic as it focuses on the outcome rather than the process, setting up expectations that limit vision and often create disappointment.
In the cultivation of inner peace, hope matters. I really felt that. And I concur with Vaclav Havel’s stance that: ‘hope is….an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.’ My doctoral work concerns itself with inner and outer peace, I am dedicating four years of my life to a deep dive into research toward a more wholesome, peaceful and sustainable life without any knowledge that the work I do will have a particular outcome. But just like a pebble dropped into a still lake will always create ripples, anything we do will always contribute to what comes next. Whether we see it r not. While I can see the point Wheatley is making, I rather position myself within a core Buddhist belief that affirms that each interconnected moment everywhere is created out of causes and conditions which in turn create the causes and conditions for the next moments to emerge in the way they do. This is how systems work so what we contribute matters. It makes sense to have right-sized hope (rather than hopelessness), one that is not overly attach to a particular outcome but one that offers a deeper, more resilient source of strength and purpose amid uncertainty and unknowability.
You have your own responses and reflections, opinions and positions on hope. Perhaps the contemplations that I just shared contribute usefully in some way. I dare say, I hope they do.
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