A Deeper Look at the Meaning of Hope

Does being hopeful has a degenerative side?

Jul 28, 2021

Greetings from Tehran,

I spend my Friday and Saturday preparing for a workshop about the concept of hope for a food production company. The session aimed to take a deeper look at the meaning of hope. How we experience it and how we define it.

Living in Iran with economic and social challenges raises fears about the future, and as the vision becomes unclear, motivation and performance decrease. In the last five years, I had requests from companies to deliver workshops and speeches on resiliency, optimism, stress management, and subjects that help people to cope with uncertainty. When new challenges arise in the country, amount of requests for such topics increase. This is how it is in the country. But life is going on.

I remember I read a quotation from a Yoga instructor (can’t remember the source):

Way and obstacles are the way!

In my workshop delivery, I tried to mention that we need to take a deeper look at the meaning of hope as, like many other things, meanings become so apparent to us that we ignore them. I also tried to show a degenerative side of hope which depends on our mindset. Here is an overview of what I studied for the workshop and what I delivered.

Frames on the wall

Think about all the frames on the walls around you. When was the last time you stood front of them and watched them? When was the last time you asked yourself what this frame, picture, or painting means to me? What memory does it evoke? What is the story behind this picture?

Photo Credit: Darshan Patel / Source: Unsplash

When you hang a frame or picture on the wall, you pay attention to it for a while. You see it, and even you enjoy it. But after a couple of days, the frame becomes part of the wall. It is there. As days go on, you do not pay much attention to it.

There are things in life that are so natural and obvious to us that we stop asking questions about them or even think about them. We live with the predefined meanings in our minds. For example, the definition of friend and friendship, husband, wife, father, mother, employee, boss, life, etc., all can be like the air we breathe which is there, and we do not think about it or are aware of its presence. We think about the importance of air when pollution factors increase. Such apparent things are out of our awareness radar. So can be hope.

What is hope?

At the workshop, I asked participants how did you experience hope in your life? When was the time you touched hope?

Morteza, one of the participants, replied:

“For me, like anyone else, sometimes, I face obstacles. I usually try different ways and approaches to overcome the obstacle. While I can try, It means I’m hopeful.”

Charles Synder, author, and researcher have one of the most cited research about hope. He defines it:

Hope is defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.1

Synder declares hopeful thinking makes up with three things:

Goals: Approaching life in a goal-oriented way.

Pathways: Finding different ways to achieve your goals.

Agency: Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals.

It seems the narrative of Morteza from his life experience is similar to what Synder defines. In Morteza’s definition of hope, you can spot goal orientation when he points to overcoming obstacles. You can spot pathway thinking, find different ways, and agency when he talks about while I can try.

I call Synder’s definition of hope a Generative Hope. Taking action and being solution-focused is at the heart of the meaning.

Degenerative Hope

At the workshop, there were other definitions of hope from other participants. Some others described hope as a belief that something better will happen in the future. It was related to greater energy. An inquiry into the narrative shows the person was in a hopeless state believing they can’t do anything more. From this point of view, we see the absence of goals, pathway thinking, and a sense of agency. The assumption behind this narrative can be like: “I surrender. Some greater thing, a God or greater energy should change the situation I’m stuck in.” In their definition of hope, there is a lack of taking action and self-assurance.

Nietzche says:

Hope is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen master, says:

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us – to make some hardship lighter. When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic. Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment. We use hope to believe something better will happen in the future, that we will arrive at peace, or the Kingdom of God. Hope becomes a kind of obstacle. If you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover the joy that is already here.2

Hope can be degenerative whit the lack of goal orientation and sense of agency or just expecting something better will happen in the future without pathway thinking. When the person sees the future as an object, they remove other possibilities from the sight. By the objective future, I mean uncertainty is the nature of the future, and we don’t have one possible future. When we think broader, we can realize that the context we are in (I mean society, family, expertise area, etc.) can open up new futures.

Sometimes we say we are hopeful, and it means that I’m hopeless at the heart of what we say. It’s blind optimism and not taking the responsibility of taking action. I invite you to ask a question from yourself:

“When you say I’m hopeful, what do you mean? What’s at the heart of that?”

Curiosity and some questions

This week, I spent most of my time studying on hope. And there are questions in my mind:

How does the context I’m in shape the narrative of hope?

What’s social hope?

How is a collective hope narrative constructed in a social structure?

How do Social dynamics change the narrative of hope for people?

How Geographical location of living defines the narrative of hope?

Feel free to share this article with your friends. I do appreciate any comment.

The Coach

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