Resilience: Where positivity fails, hope endures
Final part in a series about the Phases of Disaster and Resilience
My short run today felt hot and hard as mere 70 degree temperatures were a big jump from the 50s, and the last time I ran this far - 3 miles - was in January. When I got home, Travis asked how it went, and I said it was slow and that I had to walk some of it.
“But you’re still happy about it?” he asked.
“Yeah, I feel good about it,” I said. “You have to start where you’re at.”
It would have been easy to feel discouraged knowing it wasn’t that long ago that I could complete longer distances without walking, but it helped that I had this post on my mind while exercising.
I thought about how the difference between positivity and hope is that positivity often focuses only on the good in the present moment, while hope is forward-looking and acknowledges things can get better.
A positive thought about my run might be, “At least I got out here!” While a hopeful thought would more along the lines of, “This is difficult, but next time will be a little easier.”
Being positive can help in countless situations, but where positivity fails is when it ignores or doesn’t acknowledge that the current situation may be tough. Using hope in a sentence simultaneously accepts less-than-perfect conditions and makes a wish for the future.
“I hope my grandma gets better.”
“I hope my child isn’t bullied today.”
“I hope COVID-19 ends.”
“I hope our country can come together to fight injustice.”
“I hope scientists discover a cure for cancer.”
Hope is the final element of resilience that Kira Mauseth of the Washington State Department of Health noted when educating on the Phases of Disaster. It’s what I’ve been feeling a lot more now that spring has arrived and COVID-19 vaccines are being administered. I’m able to acknowledge that while some things still aren’t how I’d like them to be, a new normal is on the horizon after a long year.
After this pandemic, I want to keep learning to grow hope within my life because we can never predict everything, and our world will always face significant challenges.
Three aspects of hope take effort, can be developed
When I tried to narrow down what hope means to me, I came up with three words: imagination, wishing, and bravery, all of which take effort.
The answers to things that are initially unsolved, untested, and unknown begin as visions by humans interested in solving problems. That’s where imagination comes in. It takes someone with the energy to create something that doesn’t exist to make the unimaginable happen. It’s also needed to make human life better. We have to imagine, or hope, for a safer, more peaceful world before we can help create and live in one.
I see the wishing element as a kind of love that hope envelops. When a friend revealed her loneliness and deep desire to find love, I hoped she’d find it. Romance and life-long partnership isn’t something I can guarantee, but I can wish for it - for her. I think this is what parents feel for their children, what children feel for their parents, and what we can feel for friends and strangers when they are in pain. We might say, “I hope your struggles end soon,” which is a loving wish for something better.
Bravery is taking the next step in the dark when we can’t see where the stairs end. This piece of hope addresses scary, mysterious, and sad parts of life, and helps us find our way through. It’s attempting to take some control even when we don’t know the ending. Brave hope guides those who struggle with infertility as they face doctor appointments, treatments, IVF or attempting to get pregnant again after miscarriage. It leads people experiencing mental illness to therapy and medication. It helps soldiers and leaders who want wars to end. It’s having faith in something or someone that fell short in the past.
Hope isn’t easy. It’s not like positivity because it’s not a silver lining. It takes energy, determination, and belief. Hope is sometimes like lighting match after match to guide us through the night on a winding, uphill, muddy road. A small fire has to keep burning through every heartbreak, lost battle, and failure, even if the blaze dwindles to a flicker before it lights the next match. The loss of hope hurts, like a flame too close to our fingers before we drop the match or blow it out, leaving us standing in darkness and smoke.
When I form pictures of what hope looks like in my head, it’s warm coals that could form a blazing fire again; it’s an unlocked window in a burning home; it’s a full moon that lights a path for the hiker who lost track of time; it’s the wind that carries a hot air balloon over a canyon; it’s a test tube in a lab.
If we learn to cultivate hope while experiencing life’s unexpected moments and pain, it can lead to a way through, a way beyond, and a remedy.
Series on Phases of Disaster and Resilience: