Being just "positive" during the worst times of your life doesn't work. You need practical tools to move forward without losing your mind. In difficult times, in times of systemic crisis, hope alone doesn't help. Right now, as the world order is "resetting", you need something stronger than hope. I'm not saying hope is useless. Hope alone can only take you so far.
"Hope is more the consequence of action than its cause. As the experience of the spectator favors fatalism, so the experience of [action favors agency]," says author Roberto Mangabeira Unger.
The problem with hope is that it has wings.
It takes you above the crisis. And tells you things will get better. Which is fine, except it doesn't tell you how. It doesn't give you anything practical to do with your worries, anxieties and worst-case scenario mindset. Hope floats above the things that don't go away. While you're down here trying to figure out how to get through the next day.
The one thing I find repeatedly useful is agency, not optimism. Viktor Frankl survived Nazi concentration camps. You know what he said mattered most? Finding something he could control. He couldn't control whether he'd live or die. But he could control how he responded to what he was going through. How he helped other prisoners. What he chose to dwell on. Practical ways to take back his mindset.
In Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl wrote, "Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings." These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of the their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom — which cannot be taken away — that makes life meaningful and purposeful."
The first thing that's stronger than hope is the practice of finding your tiny circle of control and working it like your life depends on it. You need practice, not just a feeling. You can't think your way out of suffering. You have to practice your way through it. Train yourself to notice when your mind is catastrophising. And without judgment, bringing it back. Again and again. It's repetition.
A way of life.
A skill you build.
In uncertain times. Or when everything everywhere feels like it's falling apart, you've got to do more than hope. You have to get practical. You might lose your source of income, bills could triple, and you may not be able to sustain your present life. Now, save your sanity first. You can't stay in that mindset. Or dwell on it. Redirect your thinking to what you already have. The skills you can improve or build. Refuse to let your frightened brain run your life.
Something else that works when you're struggling is people. Your people. The psychologist Susan Silk created the "Ring theory" for this. Draw circles. You're in the centre. Your closest people are in the next ring out. Support always flows inward. Complaints flow outward. If you're in crisis, you don't just need someone to tell you it'll be okay. You need someone to be there for you. While it's not okay. To be honest with you about how hard it actually is. What people want when they are going through hard times is not static. Sometimes it's nothing. Other times, they need "healthy distractions. Being there for others matters more than hopeful words.
Hope can be a start.
But it shouldn't stop there.
The goal is not to feel better. Return to happiness. Or get back to normal. It's capacity or ability to be with what is, to face reality as is, without losing your sanity. Even when what is completely sucks. Pema Chödrön, the Buddhist nun, calls it "staying with the raw energy." Not trying to fix it or spiritualize it or hope it away. Just being able to be there with it.
And find meaning beyond what you are going through. Frankl discovered in those camps that people who had a "why" could endure almost any "how." Not hope that they'd survive. But a reason that surviving mattered. Maybe it was getting back to someone they loved. Finishing something they'd started. Or witnessing what was happening so they could tell others.
The meaning came first.
The survival followed.
"No matter how bleak or menacing a situation may appear, it does not entirely own us. It can't take away our freedom to respond, our power to take action," says Ryder Carroll.
When you're in hard times, what would make going through it worth it? What could you learn, who could you become, and what could you do that would make the "temporary" transition mean something? When I turned down the most "lucrative" offer of my career, I was terrified. But I've come this far because of it. I have learned I can survive my worst fear coming true.
I built a life, practice, a way of life, I could repeat even when I had nothing to hold onto. The uncertainty was real. I had to make things work. I focused on what was true at the time. I had life and the tools to figure out what to do next. The goal was time freedom. The process to make that happen had to mean something. For you, the stages of life might be different. But make it simple enough that you can do it when you're falling apart. Find your reason for being and be specific. Look for the meaning while you're still in it. Not after. Not when it's resolved. Now, "If I get through this, what will I have learned? Who will I be able to help because I went through this?"
In a crisis, focus on your "locus of control."
Some people obsess over the economy or the ticking clock. That's a fast track to a breakdown. Focus on what's real. Do the next small thing. You need to stop hoping things will work out before you can make them work out. Hope alone can take away the urgency to act. Why change your approach when you're still hoping your current path will pan out? People postpone difficult conversations and hope the problem will resolve itself. Why build a backup plan when you're hoping you won't need it?
Become a realist who refuses to wait for things to work themselves out. Use your agency to change things. Control what you can and accept what you can't. Get past why this is happening to me. What are you going to do about it? You can't control anyone's choices. Make your own realistic plans for different scenarios in life. That's agency. It doesn't guarantee good outcomes. But it means you won't be paralysed waiting, hoping the universe will solve everything.
Your capacity to act.
And willingness to adapt even when you are terrified can do more for your life than hoping. The people who've survived genuinely difficult things. Serious illness. Financial stress. Loss. The ones who made it through weren't necessarily the most hopeful. They were the most persistent. The most able to act or do something for themselves. The most willing to try something different when the first ten things failed. They didn't wait for rescue. They became their own rescue.
Become an optimistic realist.
Make one small decision you've been postponing because you hoped it wouldn't be necessary. Pick the smallest thing you can do today. Not tomorrow. Not when you feel ready. Today. And when everything around you feels uncertain and overwhelming, start with your mind. Take back control of the worst-case scenarios in your head. Stop dwelling on them. "It's your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself, that determines how your life's story will develop," says Dieter F. Uchtdorf. The adversity we can't control is difficult times. But our response is entirely ours. This is the meaning of agency: recognising that while we can't always change our circumstances, we always have power over our choices.
Hard times will keep coming.
They always do. You can't hope them away. But you can walk through them. One decision, one action, one stubborn step at a time. That's not hope. It's something better. Once we start to act, hope ensures. Don't just look for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, can hope do wonders for your life. Hope doesn't precede action. It follows it.