Hope isn’t naive — it’s necessary

Lesson #27 of 40

As I approach 40, I’m embarking on a year-long project to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned in four decades of life. This is lesson #27. You can read the full series here.

Will things blow up or burn bright? (Getty Images)

The other night, I decided to make a list of reasons to feel hopeful about 2025. I managed to jot down eight. Just eight! And the reasons I came up with seemed small and tenuous.

I turned to Billy and asked if he could think of a reason to feel hopeful about next year.

“Like, about the world?” he said, frowning.

“You can take your time,” I replied, watching his brows furrow in thought.

Once I got to my eighth reason, I turned back to him.

“Did you come up with anything?”

“Ask me again tomorrow,” he said.

I don’t need to spell out all the reasons 2025 will be a difficult year, do I? We know that list. Even if you’re riding a wave of good fortune, are naturally optimistic, or have limited your exposure to bad news, the list lingers. It’s there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to remind us of the darkness ahead.

The list is personal and political, local and global, tangible and existential. It’s filled with moments that will test us, challenge our faith in humanity, and leave us feeling hopeless.

It’s easy to feel cynical. It’s easy to predict that 2025 will be a difficult year — that it will bring more of the same, if not worse. The world will continue to fall apart, just like it always has. People and institutions will fail us, like they always have. Natural disasters, income inequality, senseless violence, and the erosion of human rights will continue to worsen. We’ll run into the same old struggles we’ve been fighting against all our lives.

It can be hard to feel hopeful.

Billy never gave me a specific reason he’s hopeful about 2025, but told me he feels hope anyway.

“Hope is like breathing,” he said. “It’s natural. It keeps us alive.”

Although it nagged at me that he couldn’t name a reason, I loved that answer.

My own list of reasons to feel hopeful about the new year remains at eight. My most practical reason — for Americans, at least, though it may resonate with others given our country’s outsized influence — is this: we no longer have to dread the results of the U.S. presidential election. The waiting is over. In three weeks, Trump will take office again.

We’ve been here before. We got through it once. We can get through it once more.

It’s like receiving a diagnosis for a recurring illness. We now have the information we’ve been dreading. Now we can act, instead of sitting in limbo.

I’ll admit, it’s not the most inspiring reason to feel hopeful. For some, it might not seem like much of a reason at all. But it’s grounded in realism, and realism and hope can coexist.

Next year will be tough. But in dark times, some of the brightest lights emerge — through art, ideas, movements, writing. People will create beautiful things next year.

And what is creation, if not an act of hope?

I didn’t make a list of reasons to feel hopeless about 2025, nor did I ask Billy to. If I had, we could have rattled off those reasons with ease. The list would be much, much longer than eight.

Cynicism is tempting, isn’t it? It feels smart. A shield to protect ourselves from disappointment. If we expect the worst, we won’t get hurt.

But cynicism doesn’t protect us like we think it will. It poisons us. It steals our joy. It clouds our ability to see the good, to feel hope for what lies ahead.

If I tried to write a list of reasons to breathe, I know where I’d start: to stay alive. That’s a pretty good reason. We breathe in order to live. The same is true for hope.

Hope is not naive — it’s necessary. It keeps us looking forward, keeps us energized to build the future we believe in. Even when the path ahead is dark — and yes, it looks dark to me — hope gives us light.

Choosing hope, like love, is brave. It’s the antidote for what ails us. Hope drives us to fight, believe in, and work toward something better. It’s exactly what we need next year.

If you can’t find a reason to feel hopeful about 2025, that’s okay. Just breathe. Let your body and mind do what comes naturally.

Here’s to looking ahead. See you next year, friends.

xoxo
KHG