Message of Hope
It is not an aspiration but a virtue to be practiced
[Excerpts from For 2026, There’s a Better Way to Be Hopeful by David DeSteno, NYT]
Hope drives us to improve our lives and the world around us. When it’s extinguished, despair and paralysis fill the gap, making progress even less likely. … Part of the problem is that our modern conception of hope is flawed. It practically invites hopelessness when the stakes are greatest. …
Fortunately, an alternative conception of hope exists, one that throughout history has helped ward off despair and motivate action even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges: Hope is a virtue to be practiced, not an aspiration to be managed. …
Hope is a way to be. It’s a norm or, as Aquinas put it, a habitual movement toward the good. Hope compels you to pursue goals with urgency but without the fear that if your hopes aren’t realized, you’ve failed. As a Rabbinic teaching from the Mishna puts it: It’s not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to stop trying, either. …
Life is not about any one of us. We’re all part of something bigger. The same is true for hope. Freeing hope from our egos frees us from despair. To hope is to do good without expectation that we can make it so. It is to resist the darkness daily, whatever may come.
Well said! My hope is we use the first weeks of 2026 to devise and execute a unified and winning cross-pundit/politician/activist path to push back even more in courts, pick up key veto-proof votes from disaffected Republicans in Congress, and run true consensus winners in the mid-terms, 2028 and beyond on behalf of 2/3rds of Americans who are between our nation's two divisive extremes.
This will take unprecedented discipline in messaging, platform, spokespeople and promise of real and sustainable progress for all. Sure, we could all keep to our separate routes of every- election-cycle marginal and factional gain and loss, or we could choose the better route.