Lately, it has been more challenging for me to feel hopeful about the world in general. There is so much that seems out of my control on the global level, even though my personal life is quite stable. After hearing a CPR program “The Hidden Brain”, my takeaway was that randomness is the dominating force in human events. I started wondering. I seem to need a strategy for being hopeful about life which includes both chaos and order. Otherwise, anxiety and depression set in. This is heady stuff that philosophers have debated for centuries…
What is known about human psychology is that without a feeling of hopefulness, people just do not thrive. In fact, that is one of the main symptoms of depression- a feeling of hopelessness and lack of enjoyment. Humans want to make meaning of their lives and often become hopeless and anxious because things are out of their control, or that nothing makes sense. Hope is about looking forward to something that inspires or gratifies a person, and something that has meaning.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) philosophy states that everything has a reason for happening, even if we don’t know what it is. And that it is up to us to “have a life worth living”. The thought that there is a plan or something making sense on some level can help a person be hopeful. It seems that sheer randomness with no plan is pretty discouraging. Making meaning of life is important. That is why religions and spirituality give humans hope too. My licensure specifies that I cannot counsel folks about their spiritual beliefs, but I do advocate that having a spiritual belief can support a person’s mental health. There is a narrative and explanations for living that can make a person more hopeful. Also, if there are small personal parts of life that we can be in charge of and feel uplifted by, and then it may be easier to trust that whatever happens globally might have some purpose.
What makes me hopeful about this state of the world is the resilience and ingenuity of the human race. On some level, humans know that without cooperation, the species and the planet may die. On my wall is a Chinese character that describes “crisis” as being also “opportunity”. It looks like a crisis is hitting home; and that we need to plan more for the future if we are to have one worth living.
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