This article explores the importance of hope in a world increasingly dominated by cynicism. It argues that hope, while often misunderstood, is crucial for our well-being and resilience.
Cynics suffer more depression, drink more heavily, earn less money and die younger; hope is what helps us endure. There is an ingrained cultural bias that cynics are smarter and more realistic. Hopeful people are perceived as gullible, naive eejits. The time between Christmas and new year ought to be a time of relaxation, lulled into pleasant somnolence by good food and good company, interrupted only by the occasional brisk walk. For many, it is no such thing.
Seeing others huddling cosily together only deepens the grief, pain or numbness. Yet even if our personal lives are relatively stable and untroubled, the wider world cannot be ignored. And there is much to be anxious about: wars and rumours of war, looming ecological disaster, or societal failure to provide homes. Yes, there is also beauty, goodness and kindness. However, attempts to focus only on the positive can smell of hopium, a mash-up of hope and opium, signalling addictive false comfort destined ultimately only to disappoint. Hope is not optimism. The latter is a sunny belief that things will turn out well, sometimes despite the evidence. I want to make a case for hope, instead. The apostle Paul declared that faith, hope and love endure, and the greatest of these is love. Hope is perhaps the most neglected and misunderstood of these three sisters.It’s a pity more of us don’t identify with Scrooge, the skinflint who was capable of change. Hope is not optimism. The latter is a sunny belief that things will turn out well, sometimes despite the evidence. While optimists fare better than outright pessimists, they often devolve into cynicism when disappointed by optimism’s failure to protect against suffering and disappointment. Jamil Zaki in his recent book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, suggests that cynicism has become the default for many of us. Having been let down by people or circumstances, cynics end up subscribing to three basic proposition
Optimism HOPE CYNICISM OPITMISM WELL-BEING RESILIENCE
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