Holding on to Hope

By Chris O'Shaughnessy

It’s nothing short of stating the obvious to note that it’s been a rough year. For many across the globe, 2020 will be remembered infamously, with 2021 starting out hot on its heels. That’s not to say good things haven’t happened, and it’s not to say other years haven’t brought hardship, but the previous year has been exceptional in the scope of its impact: we’re experiencing a global phenomenon in the form of the coronavirus pandemic. I think it’s partly because of the near-universal nature of our difficult experiences that finding hope is even more a struggle now than before.

In my opinion, hope falls into that strange category of words or concepts that we all have some degree of familiarity with, but still struggle to concisely define (I think “culture” is in the same group).The good old Merriam-Webster dictionary says hope is “to cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or be true.” I particularly like that definition because it has “cherish” in it – and I think we should take every opportunity possible to cherish things! To take it further, I think a defining characteristic of hope is that it’s a process – it’s the journey rather than a destination. Wish fulfillment could be a destination, an end in and of itself, while hope is the journey…that’s an important distinction.

I’d been speaking about hope at international schools, conferences, retreats, etc., even before the pandemic because of various alarming studies that showed an increase in hopelessness in young people (Twenge, 2019), and because of the interesting connection I saw with Third Culture Kids and Cross Cultural Kids. I think there is a direct correlation between a lack of connection, and a lack of hope. The more disconnected we are, the more hopeless we become. There are all sorts of reasons we were becoming more disconnected even before the pandemic. Increased use of social media is a big one. I’m not against social media – but I do think it’s like junk food: it’s got all the taste, but none of the nutrients. Real relationships require joint interest AND joint investment or risk. Social media gives us the interest…but none of the investment or risk. Junk food (social media) tastes good, but it’s no replacement for actual nutrients (interdependent relationships). Beyond that, we just don’t need each other the way we used to. Thanks to affluence and technology we can accomplish so much on our own now – and why wouldn’t we? Any opportunity to decrease risk (depending on someone else) is attractive. The downside is that we actually needed that little bit of risk/interdependence for the relational nutrition. Loneliness hit us hard in the pandemic, but it was a growing concern even before that – and loneliness is tied closely to hopelessness.

“One study, published in the American Sociological Review (ASR) and authored by Miller McPhearson, Lynn Smith- Lovin, and Matthew Brashears, sociologists at Duke and the University of Arizona, featured 1,500 face-to-face interviews where more than a quarter of the respondents — one in four — said that they have no one with whom they can talk about their personal troubles or triumphs. If family members are not counted, the number doubles to more than half of Americans who have no one outside their immediate family with whom they can share confidences.

Sadly, the researchers noted increases in ‘social isolation’ and ‘a very significant decrease in social connection to close friends and family’” (Shaw Crouse, 2014).

I believe hope is essentially an external force that we bring in – and then foster, feed, grow, nurture, and share. As the conduits between us deteriorate, the avenues for hope to flow diminish. My experience with TCKs and CCKs has shown that their lifestyle allows for them to practice connection in far more varied ways, and usually more frequently. The cross-cultural experience of young people and adults is characterized by making connections…across cultures – often out of necessity. That is a beautiful skillset to cultivate, and one that the world is in need of, because it lays the foundations for hope to flow.

But how do we access hope – where do we get it from before we can spread it through our various conduits? To answer that, I think it’s necessary to draw on some parallels between hopelessness and loneliness (in some ways, hopelessness is mental loneliness, and loneliness is social hopelessness).

For one thing, it’s important to realize that hopelessness and loneliness are feelings, not facts. These feelings are often triggered by the memory of abandonment, failure, or things not turning out how we’d hoped. When we try to apply logic to these feelings and sort them out, we can begin to rationalize them into a false sense of failure or isolation. Then insecurities creep in, and it’s all downhill from there (Wilson, 2020).

Another difficulty in accessing hope is the reality that hopelessness can actually be pretty seductive. That may sound strange – but it might help to think of hopelessness as something in and of itself, not just the absence of hope. A phenomenal study dealing with rats and drugs (Hari, 2015) made the insightful observation that people (like rats, as unflattering as that may sound) are bonding creatures – we’re going to bond to something, and in the absence of something healthy, we will bond to something unhealthy. In the absence of hope, we’ll bond to hopelessness.

I see it as like being outside in the cold. You’re shivering, you miss the warmth, you’ve got to do something. In the (walkable but effort-consuming) distance, you can see there’s a house with a fire crackling away offering respite from the cold. But there’s also a thick blanket just within arm’s reach. The truth is that hopelessness (and loneliness for that matter) are like that blanket. They offer something to fill the void. Something that requires less effort – but something that ultimately keeps us in the cold. Hope requires some effort, but ultimately gets us to a better place.

With this in mind, I think there are a variety of sources for hope: faith, relationships, our own story and the story of others…even new experiences have been shown to increase happiness which is a way of welcoming in hope. The ability to view life as a story (where we draw on the past in constructive ways, make the most of the present, and look positively towards the future) is a way of welcoming in hope. In times of trouble it’s very easy to assume how things are now is how they’re always going to be. That’s a survival technique but it’s not accurate. We welcome hope in when we recognize that now has its place, now will ultimately become the past, and the future holds new nows full of possibility. Gratitude is another powerful way to welcome in hope: the discipline of taking the time, on a regular basis, to consciously make a list of things we’re grateful for brings in a sense of hope.

Finally, an amazing characteristic of hope is that hope itself creates more hope. Thankfully, it’s not a zero-sum game: someone else doesn’t have to have less hope for us to have more – it’s not a limited resource. Hope isn’t the absence of pain: life inevitably has painful moments – painful gut-wrenching moments that rip holes in our being. When we recognize that hopelessness is not so much a void as a dangerous filler, we can consciously choose how to fill the wounds left by pain. Suffering leaves a vacuum and it’s going to be filled. Because hope creates more hope, we can offer a better alternative through building connections, sharing our story, and connecting it with others’ stories: hope flows through connection.

One of my favorite quotes sums this up nicely:

“Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is.” (Bell, 2005)

So, especially amidst the pandemic: be grateful for your story and that of others, don’t be seduced by the easy to reach blanket of hopelessness – choose to fill the void left by pain with hope, and build conduits to spread that hope.

Chris O'Shaughnessy

Christopher O’Shaughnessy (www.chris-o.com) is a passionate and versatile speaker, comedian, and author who uses a unique blend of story-telling, humor, and provocative insight to engage a wide array of people on topics associated with globalization and cross-cultural understanding. Chris is enlisted by organizations large and small ranging from international schools and educational institutions to government agencies and businesses across the globe. He has worked in, lived in, or traveled to more than 100 countries and brings first-hand experience of an everglobalizing world to his audiences. Chris’s book, Arrivals, Departures and the Adventures In-Between, has received high praise from students, teachers, and other experts in the international community as a resource that is both enjoyable to read and able to instill truths, insights, and skills essential to navigating life successfully in an ever globalizing world.

References

Bell, Rob. Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. HarperOne, 2005.

Hari, J. (2015, January 20). The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-real-cause-ofaddicti_b_6506936

Pattillo, A. (2020, May 18). Scientists Pin Down a Link Between Happiness and 1 Daily Activity. Retrieved from https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/new-experiences-shapemood-study

Shaw Crouse, J. (2014, May 18). The Loneliness of American Society. Retrieved from https://spectator.org/the-loneliness-of-american-society/

Twenge, J. (2019, March 14). Mental Health Issues Increased Significantly in Young Adults Over Last Decade. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/03/mentalhealth-adults

Wilson, R. (2020, July 19). Combat Loneliness by Expanding Your Circle of Concern. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/blog/fight-loneliness-by-expandingyour-circle-of-concern#1