What is hope, really?
A few years ago, I read that hope stands in our way to live our life fully.
At first, it seemed a strange idea.
Doesn’t hope help us look forward to the future?
Doesn’t hope make us feel alive?
When I first came across the idea that hope can stop us from savoring life, I was struggling with low energy and chronic pain. I felt disappointed with my body.
I sometimes got angry I wasn’t able to do things I was used to, such as working long hours, swimming, and going on long bike rides.
Why couldn’t my body just heal?
I kept longing for a life that I considered normal—thriving on adrenaline, being busy, feeling the joyful exhaustion that comes after physical exercise.
The buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön tells us we’re addicted to hope. We hope a babysitter will solve all our problems. Don’t we all, at some stage of our lives, deserve a blissful time without problems and without pain?
This type of hope behaves a bit like anxiety.
Both anxiety and hope take us away from the present and make us live in the future—either a scary or a rose-tinted future.
But why would we let go of hope?
Hopelessness is the place to start …
In her book When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chödrön suggests that hopelessness is the beginning:
In Tibetan there’s an interesting word: ye tang che. The ye part means “totally, completely,” and the rest of it means “exhausted.” Altogether, ye tang che means totally tired out. We might say “totally fed up.” It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope. This is an important point. This is the beginning of the beginning. Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.
I’ve been thinking about that for a long time.
Hopelessness means to let go of wishful thinking, to stop fantasizing about a blissful future, and to accept that no babysitter exists—we might never find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Hopelessness may seem bleak but it offers the possibility of nurturing a more muscular hope. A hope grounded in reality.
A practice of gratitude
A few years ago, I tried practicing gratitude.
I told myself I should be more grateful. Weren’t there enough things in my life to be grateful for? I’m quite privileged. I have a loving husband. We have a small but lovely home. I love my work. I can manage my own time. There are so many things to be grateful for.
But the harder I tried to be grateful, the less grateful I felt. I couldn’t feel gratitude in my bones, and I wondered what was wrong with me.
I quit my gratitude practice but I continued practicing mindfulness, and over time, I started to recognize small moments of gratefulness. The sun warming my face on an early Spring day. Waking up in a warm bed, the reassuring sound of soft snoring beside me. A phone call to catch up with a good friend, a meeting of kindred spirits.
This year, I even learned to feel grateful for my weary body. I started with practicing gratitude for my feet as they keep me grounded. Slowly, my gratitude expanded to my whole body, even my injured muscles. I’m still breathing. I’m still moving. I’m still writing.
I learned to appreciate how hard my body was working to heal. My body is only telling me when to slow down and rest. I made peace with doing less.
And then there was hope …
Practicing hope works the same way for me as practicing gratitude.
It’s an embodied practice. I can’t tell myself to be hopeful. I have to feel the hope in my body.
To practice hope, I learned to open my mind and to notice what gives me hope.
The flowers that bloom after a dark winter. The old couple doing crosswords on a park bench. The car driver who stops to let the ducks cross the road. The colorful drawing from a neighborhood kid.
The young people demanding climate action. The smart scientists developing vaccines. The community leaders. The helpers. The kind strangers.
Real hope is not toxic positivity
Toxic positivity is pretending all is fine when it clearly is not.
It’s telling ourselves to cheer up and ignore negative feelings. It’s plowing on when we need rest.
In contrast, practicing real hope is acknowledging pain and suffering, and still seeing signs of hope and taking action towards a better world.
Practicing hope is keeping the pilot light. It’s taking care of ourselves so we can become our best selves. It’s being compassionate with ourselves and others.
An overly optimistic hope is clinging to a rose-tinted future.
Real hope is held more lightly.
It’s finding the courage to believe and take action to create a better future for all of us.
How to be hopeful
Pain and anxiety used to make my world shrink. It still happens sometimes. Boundaries contract and edges feels sharper.
To stay connected and open-minded, I practice curiosity, kindness, gratitude, and hope.
Curiosity helps open my mind and expand my world. Kindness helps connect with myself and my inner child, so I can build more meaningful relationships with others, too.
Gratitude brings calmness in my life—an appreciation for what’s right here in front of me and an acknowledgement of the forces that brought me this far.
And hope is a deep-felt belief in the goodness of humans. Hope helps find the courage to move forward and take action—no matter how small—so that together we can make the world a better place.
Curiosity, kindness, gratitude and hope—they reinforce and strengthen each other. A force for good, for becoming a better human being.
I’ll keep practicing.
And you?
This is my last post of 2021. Thank you for reading and keeping me company all year. I’m sending you my best wishes for a joyful and creative 2022. See you in the new year.
“Curiosity, kindness, gratitude, and hope—they reinforce and strengthen each other. A force for good, for becoming a better human being.”
Through your words and writings, I find the freshness of the morning, the industrious busy bees in the noon, the quietness of the afternoon, the music and enjoyment of children during the evening, and the insight & truth of the darkness at night.
let me share here one poem from one of my favorite poets. and since I am from India and Bengali, so whom I dare to quote other than Rabindranath Tagore:
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”
I wish to let all blessings shower on you. you are very generous, kind, diligent, adventurous, and curious with a golden and glittering mind. Just keep shining.
What a lovely comment and a beautiful poem. Thank you so much for sharing, Indranil.
This is such a lovely compliment: “Through your words and writings, I find the freshness of the morning, the industrious busy bees in the noon, the quietness of the afternoon, the music and enjoyment of children during the evening, and the insight & truth of the darkness at night.”
Thank you.
Henneke, thank you for your honesty and authenticity. You help me appreciate the importance of the “inside” work. I wish you continued courage and strength in the new year. And, know you have another kindred spirit who is also doing “the work.”
It helps to know that others are doing the hard work, too! Thank you, Susan.
You are unique and I´m so happy to have found your blog. Thank you for always creating true content that gives us a new and real perspective. Have a wonderful 2022 and PLEASE keep giving us your wonderful writing!
Thank you for you lovely comment, Mariela. I’ll do my best to keep writing in the new year. Sending you my best wishes for a joyful 2022!
Hi Henneke,
I have to disagree with one important thing you said. “And hope is a deep-felt belief in the goodness of humans.” Your premise is that human beings are good. Unfortunately they are not.
History documents the murder, rape, and torture of hundreds of millions of innocent men, women, and children.
That’s not to say that there aren’t good people. But that’s not part of our nature. We have to raise good children as parents and a society to change the narcissistic nature of humans. Otherwise we wouldn’t need so many laws to control human behavior.
I am hopeful that we can be better humans. But it won’t happen without hard work.
Of course, I can’t deny there’s a lot of badness in the world. But where does it come from? Are we all inherently bad? Or is society organized in such a way that it makes us worse?
Lots of the stories we are told about the inherent badness of people can be questioned. For instance, Lord of the Flies was a completely made up story by a schoolmaster who was an alcoholic prone to depression. There is a real story of 6 boys who were shipwrecked in the Pacific and who survived for a year on an island. All boys were in good health when they were finally rescued. This real story is a story of friendship. It’s the complete opposite of the made-up story of Lord of the Flies.
If you’re open to a different perspective, then I highly recommend the book Humankind by Rutger Bregman—he debunks many of the stories about the inherent badness of humans. It’s an eye-opening read.
Sending you my best wishes for a joyful, creative, and healthy new year!
Hi Henneke,
I don’t believe that we are either bad or good. I believe that we are born neutral. And there are lots of good people in the world just as there are many evil people. But I don’t blame society, racism, or any other outside force for the bad that we do. That’s taking the responsibility off the person who does the evil act and placing it on something outside of them. We all have free will and control the choices we make. When we as individuals make bad choices, that’s our own decision, not someone else. I know this from personal experience. That’s why one person raised in poverty does great things and another growing up in the same circumstances resorts to a life of crime. Why does one person make good choices and the other make bad choices?
Also, if we are deemed to be basically good, what incentive is there for parents to teach their children to be good people? After all, they were born good people. Why teach them right from wrong, how to have a good moral code, and treat others by the golden rule?
This is a deep philosophical subject and I’m always open to reading works by someone with a differing opinion. It will be interesting to see how Rutger Bregman argues that people are basically good in light of the atrocities committed against other human beings since the beginning of recorded time.
Take care.
Bregman’s book was definitely an eye-opener for me as well and an excellent read.
It changed my perspective. There were several stories of which I had heard the wrong (negative) version before and it was so interesting to see them corrected.
Hi Henneke,
It was an amazing article! It was very unique and eye-opening, reading through all the sentences gave me a new and fresh perspective. It reminded me of the time when I was struggling to find hope and motivation in my daily life. It was the darkest time of my life, and I really don’t want to remember it, but to be honest, that was the time when I felt I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and whenever things go out of hand I remind myself that I got better, and I can do it again. Reading your article was amazing, and I loved how you provoke emotions with your words.
Thank you, John. That’s so true: We’ve been here before and we can do it again.
Sending you my best wishes for a joyful and creative new year.
Thank you Henneke, for these words speak to something we all are hunting for these days in a world full of new challenges – be it life, work or health-related.
Thank you, Kal. I’m glad my words spoke to you. I think this year has been a challenging year for almost everyone.
Thank you Henneke. I read this on the other side of the world (NZ) and appreciated your wise words. I hope 2022 is a blessed year for you. Enjoy your break. 🌲😊
Thank you, Sue. Sending you best wishes for a restful break and a joyful, creative new year. 💜
Thank you for your post. I always enjoy them.
You help me to make my hope become a reality: my book is progressing and I feel good about the content. My plan is that it will be finish by the end of March. I have a french editor who is interested.
Hope without action remains Hope…not fulfilled.
Hope to become real needs attention and action to become a realisation. Hope transforms in an image, a visualisation.
Your course in writing gave me the tools to make me believe that I can do it. Thank you
That’s wonderful. It makes me happy to know your book is progressing well.
Thanks so much for letting me know, Louise. Sending you best wishes for the new year!
Dear Henneke,
Since I have been reading your stories, I think your work has become more fascinating now than ever. More tantalising, and loaded with mouth-watering intelligent dialogue.
I am glad to know you, I thank you for your Christmas greetings.
Enjoy your holidays.
I look forward to a wonderful 2022, with your writing guide.
Thank you for sharing your life with us.
Stay immensely blessed.
Best regards.
Paula Akhile.
Thank you for your lovely comment, Paula.
And best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a joyful and creative new year.
Thank you for stopping by. I appreciate it.
So really you are giving up unrealistic hope 😉
Well, I hope you do recover, and that it will happen sooner than you dare hope right now.
Happy 2022!
Yes, that’s it. No more unrealistic hope. More hope grounded in the now. Health wise, tiny steps forward and fewer (or smaller) steps back, please. 🙂
Happy 2022!
PS Giving up unrealistic hope is only one part. Equally important (perhaps even more so), is training myself to look for and notice what gives me real hope.
Thank you Henneke, that gives hope a much better perspective! Not just holding onto it for the sake of a floaty if there’s stormy weather, but combining it more with faith, showing it to be more sturdy & constructive than a mere whim. Seeing hope in action, with present reminders, rather than just holding onto a pipe dream version. I’ve always liked hope, it has always helped me in tricky times, I think it encourages trust in the Universe & ourselves, & I appreciate the way you have separated it from blind positivity. It’s real, & useful, & is not just a wishbone. I thank you for giving it the credit it deserves! Thanking you very much for sharing your wisdom & thoughtful meanderings, sending you also much joy & creativity in the coming year 🙂
I love how you describe hope, Jo. I’m with you. Hope helps us get through tricky times, and it encourages trust in the Universe and ourselves and our fellow human beings. We can’t live without hope but we don’t need to hold on to a pipe dream version. That’s it.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Wishing you much joy and creativity for the new year, too.
Thank you for you thought provoking post. There is a word that describes the saliva production of your favorite breakfast with the sizzling sounds and wafting aroma of bacon frying in an iron skelte or a loved evening meal being prepared for you as described in Katharine’s post. It also creates the excitement and motivation generated by an upcoming event. However, it’s like so many English words it’s like a two sided coin that also creates a bitter pill to swallow and creates doom and gloom with a foreboding future. Though addition savory words make it better, creating both euphoria and dread the word you may be looking for is anticipation.
I’d like there to be a more specific word for each kind of anticipation. The feeling when you’re utterly cold (you can feel it in your bones—perhaps you’ve just been out on a walk in a cold storm), you open the door and you’ll know the cozy warmth at home will soon start to warm you up. That’s a different kind of anticipation from the salivating when you’re hungry and smell good food. Or the excitement and anticipation of a child who can’t wait to open a Christmas present.
This quote is from the email I read just before reading yours. They rarely make the news headlines but reading about the young people described gives me real hope and immense gratitude.
QUOTED.
“Remember, please remember reinforcements are on the way – they’re sitting in lecture halls now, venturing into the field for the very first time, writing theses, leading marches, organizing communities, learning to turn passion into progress, potential into power.”
– Harrison Ford, XPRIZE Rainforest Advisory Board member
Yes, I believe in the young people, too. It often feels like my generation has messed up but the new generations will do better.
Thanks so much for sharing that quote, Susan. I appreciate it.
Thank you Henneke for these messages which are so enjoyable while still being educational. I like your drawings which express the content of the posts so well, but also by the expression of kindness they convey representing you, as well as your pen. At least that’s how I receive them.
Happy New Year to you too.
Thank you, Monique. That’s such a lovely compliment. Happy New Year to you!
So deep, so true and just what we need to reflect upon at this chaotic time.
Mindfulness allows us to be grateful, to see the positive, it teaches us to focus. When we do that our stress levels become less, we breathe easily and we are at peace with the universe. I guess all we have to do is remember and practice.
Yes, so true. We have to remember and practice. That’s the hard part of it!
Thank you for stopping by, Alice. I much appreciate it. Wishing you a joyful and mindful new year.
Thank you Henneke for a timely and hopeful message. Life happens moment by moment.
Much of it echoes my hero, 99 years old sage Doris Carnevali, whose Engaging-With-Ageing blog she started 5 years ago, does not cease to lift me up, week after week.
https://engagingwithagingblog.wordpress.com/
Thank you, Osnat, for the recommendation. I’ll check out Doris Carnevali’s blog. It sounds good!
Real hope is not toxic positivity.
Wow. This phrase leapt off the page at me.
Such an insightful post.
My best to you and yours for 2022.
I’ll be applying curiosity, kindness, gratitude and hope from a different perspective from now on.
Regards
Trevor
Thank you, Trevor. It’s taken me time to change my perspective but it helps a lot and it’s been worth it. I’m still learning and practicing.
Sending you my best wishes for a joyful 2022, too.
Thank you for your post. I don’t open many emails but I always read yours. I enjoy your insights and the way your words flow so beautifully. You write so thoughtful and heartfelt. Thank you for all you share. 💗
That’s such a lovely compliment, Meg. Thank you. 💜
Hello Henneke,
Thank you for your advice as always.
Your idea, “hope can stop us from savoring life,” struck a chord with me.
I would like to share with you an excerpt from my Season’s Greetings emails to my friends:
“In 1994 after the liberation of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein, a co-worker (rotating equipment engineer) introduced the following quote at the Parsons project management office in Kuwait:
Do not regret the past; learn from the past
Do not worry about the future; plan for the future
Enjoy the present
In my work-life, I concentrated mostly on the first two but neglected the last.
After retirement, however, I have been trying to live a joyful daily life -enjoying now, the youngest and most precious moment of my remaining life on this earth.”
Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Happy New Year!
Dong
I love that: “Do not regret the past; learn from the past. Do not worry about the future; plan for the future. Enjoy the present.”
It’s such good advice for living a good life.
Thanks so much for sharing, Dong. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, too!
Henneke– what a lovely and much needed post. I think so many have lost hope over the past 2 years (or maybe they never had hope to begin with!) I see angry/irritated people in grocery store lines, at stop signals, in the reader comments in the newspaper. I wish I could send your post to all of them! They need to learn they can hope and that hope will make their lives (and the lives of all they come in contact) much more joyful. Sending joy and hugs to you!
Yes, that’s what I’m finding, too. There’s so much anger, despair, and anxiety. It feels like it’s worse now than a year ago. It’s hard to stay calm and composed sometimes. Sending joy and hugs back to you!
It’s interesting how we often miss the obvious. I’ve been feeling blue myself lately and this is just the kick in the bum I needed.
It all comes down to perspective and seeing things clearly.
Thank you Henneke!
It appears that many of us are feel blue and anxious. We’re living in dark times. Please see my writing as a gentle nudge rather than a kick in the bum 🙂
Best wishes to you, Don, for a more joyful and creative 2021.
You embody every thing I want to be when I grow up, Henneke. 🙂 Thank you for your positive spirit and giving heart. Enjoy your holiday time off.
Thank you for your lovely comment, Cathy. (But, please, I don’t really want to grow up!)
Sending you best wishes for a restful holiday season, too. Stay safe and be well.
Me neither. That’s why I haven’t (even after passing a pretty big birthday milestone). 😀
Dear Henneke,
Thank you for your words of wisdom. As always, it is a pleasure to read your blog.
All the Best for 2022,
Diana
Thanks so much, Diana. Best wishes to you for 2022, too!
Thank you, my friend, for your wisdom and insight and authenticity. Much love to you and yours. ❤️🙏
Thank you for your continued support and encouragement, my friend. Much love to you, too. ❤️🙏 Stay safe and be well.
Also I felt hope when you disappeared for what seemed like ages, and then I noticed small signs of life escaping from your side of the ocean—realizing you were still on board with us and still making the world a bit brighter where you are.
Not to make you feel pressured, but to let you know that even a smile from you makes us smile. <3
Aww, that’s so lovely. Thank you, Katharine <3
Wow. I love the term “toxic positivity”!!! I shall find many a use for that one. One time a friend asked me how I was doing and I asked her if she wanted the truth or a positive report. She chose the latter. So I told her, ” I’m positive I’m catching a cold.” heh heh
I have had to explain hope to my kids as they were growing up. I told them it’s like waking up after a long, cold night, really not warm enough in the bed, but hearing Daddy stirring the coals in the stove and adjusting the squeaky catalytic converter and knowing the house will warm up soon and smelling the lovely breakfast aromas and realizing you do want to get up. Finding the desire to rise and hurry and prepare for great things coming.
I love your explanation to your children of what hope is. There should be a word for this feeling when you feel cold but you know that you’ll soon get warm because there’ll be a hot breakfast and the stove will warm up the house. That’s so sensory!
I think “hope” is perfect for that, really.
“Toxic positivity is pretending all is fine when things clearly are not.” What a profound statement! You nailed it!
I believe it is important to be positive, but when your house is burning you might want to call a fireman!
None of us escapes pain or suffering. Eventually it knocks on all our doors. We all have something and to ignore it exists is in and of itself defeating. Because while clinging to the hope it doesn’t exist only keeps us further from overcoming it.
Your strategy for practicing “real hope” is spot on. Embrace reality and take action towards a better outcome.
God Bless You Henneke! Thanks for your raw honesty.
I’m glad this resonated with you, Margie. And it humbles me to know you’re still reading my blog. Thank you for your encouragement. Sending you best wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
I love your writing, it is so warm and stylish.
Quite convincing, yet something doesn’t ring well with me…I cannot put a finger on it. I feel like without hope, life is quite scary.
Hope is a warm blanket, it doesn’t take away the winter, but perhaps helps you get through it??
One day, as a treat, I will read everything you have written 🙂
That would be my idea of real rest and my idea of being carefree. I will sit on a park bench, overlooking a river and read and read and read.
One day soon.
Yes, we need hope. Just not the overly optimistic kind of hope.
How I interpret the quote on hopelessness is that when you feel hopeless, it feels like the end. But it’s actually the beginning of something new. When you’ve lost all hope and start to confront the present, you can find hope in the present. Once you’ve experienced the darkness, you appreciate the light more. This is the more grounded kind of hope. The hope that’s not just dreaming but also taking action towards a better life.
For instance, I might have stopped dreaming about getting back to my old energetic self, but I’m still taking action to let my body heal. There is still hope for a better life but I’m focused on my life right now and able to live my current life more fully—even if that’s in a low gear.
My hope, Henneke, is that we get to continue enjoying your posts and commentaries for yet another year or more.
I can identify, most of all, with your concern over a loss of energy because that’s been my biggest issue for the past few years, and it’s coming to a head, I’m afraid.
But then, I’m nearly twice your young years and, while you will regain most of your energy, I probably will not.
So, gratitude is my fallback option. I’m grateful for the stable health I still have; I’m grateful for the 60 years of happy memories bequeathed to me last year by the most awesome woman in the world, and for the memoir she left behind; I’m grateful for the associations I can enjoy with people like you, and I’m grateful to hear from you so often. Merry Christmas, young lady, and season’s blessings to your family.
Jim McCarthy, in the Missouri Ozarks, USA
I’m so sorry, Jim, that you’ve lost the most awesome woman in your life. That’s so so hard.
Sending my love to you in these dark days. I hope there’ll be more light in the new year for you.
I really like the thought that hopelessness is the start … Thanks for sharing that insight. I guess I’ll have time enough to think this through, since we’re in quarantine over the holidays and the new year. 🙂
Best wishes from Germany!
I had to think about hopelessness being the beginning for a very long time before it started to make sense to me.
I hope you’re coping okay with yet another lockdown. We’re living in such strange times. Stay safe and be well!
This is beautiful, Henneke. Thank you. I like the concept of hope being held lightly, partly because you’ve made me realise (and appreciate) that that’s how I live now. Curiosity, kindness, gratitude and hope. Yes.
All the blessings of the season to you.
I’m glad this resonated with you, Rachel. Sending best wishes for the holiday season to you, too.
Hope is a word I associate with soul and spirit. Want and desire and wish go with body, heart and mind.
All good things, but hope runs deepest and yes, it’s a good word for today. The day the light gets longer in the north part of this weird, wild, wonderful world.
Thank for sharing your hope with us!
So true: soul and spirit.
I’m feeling thankful that the days will start to become longer again tomorrow. That brings hope for me, too.
I am sending loads of love to you.
Thanks so much, Vaitheshwari. Sending love back to you 💜
Wishing you a wonderful 2022! Thank you for all your insight and inspiration.
Thank you, Nancy. Wishing you a joyful and creative, 2022, too!
excellent article Henneke!
Thank you, Scott.
Thank you, Henneke! Thank you for being such a caring friend, writer and teacher. For making your patch of the Internet a safe place for exploring what can be done with words. Thank you for making my writing journey so much richer and for reminding me to do the best that I can right here and now. Here’s to another year filled with enriching writing.
Awww. Thank you for your lovely comment, Susanna, and for being such a wonderful student. I can’t wait to see what the new year brings for you!
Age and a lot of loss have taught me to live the way you describe. Looking at the past brings mostly anger, and focusing on the future is just speculation, and humans tend to expect the worst. So I live in the present. But today I woke up angry at people living in my house. Your article came at the right time for me. Now I can handle those problems without creating more. I HOPE anyway.
Yes, I think we tend to learn these lessons when going through hard times. I hope you manage to solve the problems with your house mates. Sending peace to you.