One of the most confounding aspects of human existence is that both wonderful and horrible things happen, sometimes to the same individual. 

That gutting events happen across the globe daily is obvious to everyone except the most intractable naif. But the fact that beauty, music, nature, and warm and loving relationships exist alongside these should be just as bewildering. If life were nothing but a harsh prison sentence – a patchwork of dull grays and sour notes – there would be nothing to complain of because we wouldn’t know the difference.

But we do know the difference. And because we do, we’re forced to reckon with this cacophony. The key ingredient that helps to orient us to the light as we navigate the darkness and confusion is hope.

Hope has a very mixed reception among philosophers. The Stoics didn’t have much use for it; their admonition was not to dwell on tragedy but to focus on the actionable. Nietzsche saw the value of hope for giving meaning to life, but also railed against it as “the worst of evils because it prolongs the torment of man.” ¹ Kant believed that hope is necessary for a moral universe, but his take on hope is not the most personal or inspiring. 

Much of life is a mystery and a paradox, and hope is our natural response mechanism to not only keep living but to live well.

Whether we realize it or not, however, hope undergirds everything we say and do. We rise in the morning and go through the days, weeks, and years because we trust it will be worth our effort – that good things will happen, or at least improve. To live in any meaningful way is to have hope. Much of life is a mystery and a paradox, and hope is our natural response mechanism to not only keep living but to live well. Hope, as the philosopher Gabriel Marcel poetically puts it, is “an adventure going forward,” and “a memory of the future.” ²

The problem is that too many confuse hope with naivety or some kind of toxic positivity. In some cases, expressions of hope are met with ridicule and outrage: “How dare you try to ‘look on the bright side’ with all of this?” My theory is that hope takes more effort than many are willing to admit. It’s a powerful trait but only with time and cultivation. Put simply, hope is not just an outlook, but a skill.  

Hope Is Not (Just) a Feeling

C.R. Snyder, who has dedicated his career to studying the effects of hope, describes hope as a “rainbow of the mind.” His research has discovered that it plays a crucial role in helping one reach goals, including the seemingly impossible. This isn’t due to luck or whim, but rather to a mindset that’s willing to meet challenges head-on. Hope, he posits, is “primarily a way of thinking, with feelings playing an important, albeit contributory role.” ³

But setting a goal to be accepted to med school is one thing and enduring unimaginable loss or chronic stress is another thing – isn’t it? Maybe not. Admiral James Stockdale and Viktor Frankl were both imprisoned in unimaginable circumstances and survived, at least in part, by creating structure and discipline in their day-to-day. Neither one had any guarantee of survival, yet they made survival their goal and succeeded.

Gabriel Marcel helps to make sense of this seeming contradiction by making a distinction between technical problem-solving and forging one’s way through uncharted waters:

“It might be said in a sense that hope is not interested in the how: and this fact shows how fundamentally untechnical it is… An end does not exist for the technician, if he does not see approximately how to achieve it. This, however, is not true for the inventor or the discoverer who says “there must be a way” and who adds: “I am going to find it.” ⁴

In the case of the former, there’s no need for hope because the problem is simple and familiar: a computer programmer doesn’t need to hope that he’ll write the code he’s proficient at writing. But when it comes to unprecedented challenges, both global and personal, hope is the driving force. It’s also a neurological function and one we can learn to strengthen and reinforce. “Hope,” writes journalist Krista Tippet, “like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a practice that becomes spiritual muscle memory. It’s a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be.” ⁵

I think the life as it is part is what gets most people. The overwhelm of life’s unfairness or problems make it easy to retreat to our beds and beanbag chairs and pull the blanket over our heads. But to improve the world, or just our personal lives, we have to be humble enough to expend effort and energy first without any guarantee of success. Only in this paradoxical fashion will hope carry us to a better future.

Hope Is Better than Optimism

I suspect another reason hope gets a bad rap is because it gets confused with optimism. To be fair, the word optimism itself is often used interchangeably with “hope,” when its more proper definition is to believe that all things will turn out for the best no matter what. This distinction may seem minor at first, but it’s crucial. Optimism is passive and ignorant; hope is wise and proactive.

“Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists,” writes activist Rebecca Solnit. “Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting.” ⁶

Marcel likewise differentiates hope from optimism:

“The optimist always relies upon an experience which is not drawn from the most intimate and living part of himself, but, on the contrary, is considered from a sufficient distance to allow certain contradictions to become alternated or fused into a general harmony.” ⁷

Having hope means confronting the harsh realities of life, Marcel is telling us; it’s optimists who refuse to get too close to the pain and suffering, who put on blinders and do everything they can to prop up their paradigm. Hope is open-minded; optimism and pessimism are close-minded. James Stockdale, who survived seven horrific years in a prison camp in Hanoi, famously pronounced, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be.” ⁸

Stockdale’s utterance has since come to be known as the Stockdale Paradox. Too often people associate his Paradox with similar extreme situations that defy all odds; while his story is impressive, its message is universal. Life is a Stockdale Paradox. We may not be confined to a cell, beaten black and blue, but the trials that face us are brutal in their way, “whatever they may be.” To hope is to stare into the darkness and ask, “How can I create just enough light to find my way through?” 

The light will not come all at once, nor should we expect it to. In a way, this is part of the mystery and the adventure. Suffering will always be a part of life, but as long as we have hope, so will all the beautiful things that make it worth living.

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Read Next: Hope and Imagination: A Poet’s Guide to Coping with Sadness →

1. From, Human, All Too Human.
2. Marcel, G. (2010). Homo viator: Introduction to the metaphysic of hope (E. Craufurd & P. Seaton, Trans.). St. Augustine’s Press.
3. Snyder. C. R.  (2002). Hope Theory: Rainbows in the Mind. Psychological Inquiry, 13:4, 249-275, DOI: 10.1207/S15327965PLI1304_01
4. From Homo Viator.
5. Tippett, K. (2017). Becoming wise: An inquiry into the mystery and art of living. Penguin Books.
6. Solnit, R. (2016). Hope in the dark: Untold histories, wild possibilities. Haymarket Books.
7. From Homo Viator.
8. Collins, J. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap and others don’t. HarperBusiness.