Witold Pilecki is probably one of the craziest, bravest (and ultimately hopeful) war heroes you have never heard of. After invading Poland in the fall of 1939, the Germans began building a massive prison complex in the spring of 1940 – yes, that would be Auschwitz. By the summer of that year, thousands of military officers and leaders were disappearing from western Poland, presumably being taken to Auschwitz.
Already a decorated war hero from the Polish-Soviet War of 1918, Pilecki volunteered to “sneak into Auschwitz” by letting himself be captured by the Nazis. Over a period of two years inside Auschwitz, Pilecki built a resistance unit, and created a chain of command, a logistics network, and lines of communication to the outside world.
Pilecki’s goal was to mount a full-scale revolt from the inside, with help from the outside. Now that’s hope. But the outside world never responded. So, in 1943 he planned his escape and, despite being shot at by the SS guards, he made it back to safety.
Who does that?! As Mark Manson tells it in his book Everything is #@%!ed – A Book About Hope, being a hero like Pilecki isn’t just about bravery, it is “the ability to conjure hope where there is none.”
Some Days It Feels Like Everything Is #@%!ed
There have been more than a couple of times recently where I’ve felt a sinking feeling, like we’ve reached an environmental tipping point and it’s all downhill from here. The various reports throughout July of extremes in air temperatures, ocean temperatures, forest fires, flooding, and windstorms have been, well, extreme. And then there’s the social-political extremism. And the rapid development of AI brings both hope and concern.
It's easy to become anxious thinking about our future. Or worse yet, numb as we try to not think about it at all.
Why Hope Matters
Without hope, life is hard. Hopelessness is bad. It degrades our mental and emotional wellbeing, and we are more prone to anxiety and depression. It saps our motivation and energy towards our goals (why even bother?). It affects our ability to be resilient in the face of life’s challenges. It limits our ability to see creative and innovative solutions to our problems. And it tends to isolate us, removing the social connections that have allowed humans with to cope with adversity for millennia.
Given that, we need to find ways to create and maintain hope. Particularly when we don’t have it.
Finding Hope When You Don’t Have Much (Part 1)
In this article, I’ll share a couple of tips to help get you get started. In the next newsletter, I’ll add some more tips and tools that will help you create and maintain hope.
1. You Gotta Believe. Hope starts with the belief that the future can somehow be better than the present. Without this, there is literally no hope. We don’t need to know precisely how things will get better – we just need to feel confident that things will work out.
My sense from recent conversations is that many of us currently struggle to imagine humans changing our ways, or the planet healing from the damage that’s been done. A tool to help you with this is to leverage uncertainty. No one knows how things will play out. Use the many possible outcomes that lie within uncertainty to your advantage. Keep including the possibility that things can get better, maybe even in ways we never expected.
The amazing recovery of “acid lakes” in the Sudbury region in the 1980s, or the ozone layer in the 1990s, are just a couple of examples of where things would have looked bleak at the time, but humans found a solution and took action.
2. Limit Exposure to Negativity: We live in a sea of often negative, sensational, and even toxic news. It’s hard to stay positive and hopeful if your brain is constantly being triggered due to the apparent threats and dangers in your world. Minimize your exposure to negative news and people. Instead, focus your precious attention on positivity and inspiration, such as positive-minded friends, podcasts, shows, books, and the countless thoughtful people who are working hard to creating hope.
It starts with mindset and belief. In the next newsletter, we’ll move from simply having a positive mindset to taking action, since mindset alone isn’t enough.
How About You?
How’s your sense of hope for the future?
Instead of catering to your survival brain’s inherent anxiety, what if you consciously chose to look for the positives and believe there is hope? Not faint hope, but genuine, authentic hope. How might you leverage the uncertainty before us to help you include the possibility of hopeful outcomes? Remember, it has been bad before and things have turned around in unexpected ways.
What if each of us became a beacon of hope for others, rather than joining in on the negativity and doom?
I’d love to hear your thoughts and what is keeping you hopeful. To receive more articles like this on a semi-regular basis, please sign up for my free newsletter on the banner of the Homepage.