What About Hope?

Mid-term elections are around the corner, multiple tragic events have occurred, and a frantic and desperate storm seems to fill the air around us all. I try to come up for air and breath long enough to understand all my thoughts and feelings on all this. I know that I believe it’s important to work for change, but that does feel hard these days.

And what about hope? How do we stay hopeful that all will go well? And what role do we play in maintaining hope and holding out hope for ourselves and others? How do we stay hopeful in a time of so much change, so much news, so much anger, and so much confusion?

No matter your political views, this is a time when we are all bombarded with so much information that is fed to us in so many ways that it’s hard to sometimes even know what is true. And so much of it is pitting people against each other. And all this information comes at us so fast – there is almost no way to put our guard down. It seems as if this rapid pace puts gas on the fire as a way to keep us angry and against each other.

Maybe hope takes thoughtfulness – time to reflect and think. So much is rushed through without time to gather all the information or with enough time to critically think things through and talk to others. We barely have time to catch our breath let alone learn about anything or to understand different ideas and viewpoints. So much information is reactionary and in rapid-fire social media pace that we lose hope through the craziness of it all.

Or maybe hope takes no time at all. Maybe it requires staying in this active state of hope through whatever comes our way. Maybe it’s about maintaining a constant stance of hope – a commitment to action and to working towards a more hopeful outcome even when craziness and injustice is pouring down all around us.

Leadership is an active state and a leader can be an agent of change. A leader striving for change stands up for what is right and just, even if that is not easy. As I wrote in my book, “doing or saying nothing sometimes feels easier. But leaders push themselves to take action when injustice occurs” (Stewart, 2019 p.29).

So I guess the trick is to keep standing and stay strong no matter how persistent the stormy gust of injustice, fear, and anger. Take time to breath, think, and rest – and then rise above the inaction and maintain the hope…

#hope #leadership