For when the going is tough

Hope Hard?

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Summer has just come to a close in the northern hemisphere. It’s back-to-school season here, and even though I’ve not been in school in over a decade of Septembers, nor do I have kids, the season always invites possibility, beginnings, the fresh start of a blank page. 

Possibility can get you going, but what carries you once the initial burst of inspiration dims?  

A few weeks ago, I typoed “hope hard” in my morning pages. I write this newsletter because it can be so hard to have hope, to delight, to dream. To notice the good when the bad is blaring on the TV. 

Hope is precious. When life is tough, it’s the belief that better is possible. A lantern in your chest, no matter how low the flame dips or how much the wind gusts, a spark remains. 

Maybe when we grip too hard to specific outcomes, the flame snuffs out. The act of hoping hard, then, is to loosen the grip on things turning out exactly as you imagined them. To hope and hold fast to the flame, but to not snuff it out or dictate how brightly it shines.

One foot in front of the other, illuminated by hope. 

I sometimes have trouble discerning between the toxic blend of wishful-thinking-optimism and the life giving hope. If you do too, my wife always shares this sentiment from author, Cory Doctorow, with me, paraphrased thusly: “Optimism is why the Titanic didn't have enough lifeboats. Hope is why people kept swimming.”

I always pull tarot cards with my morning pages, and on the day I typoed “hope hard,” one of my cards was the seven of cups. We can get stuck in daydreaming, fantasizing, wishful thinking. But hope is an action. I’ll leave you with some wise words from Kitchen Table Tarot*:

“It’s easier to wish than try, but it’s the trying that makes things happen.”

🧐 What keeps you putting one foot in front of the other when things are hard? I’d love it if you shared in the comments, it might be just what the next person stumbling on to this post needs to hear. 

Until next time,

Ryn

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After I drafted this newsletter, this one from Robin Taylor (he/him) also about hope and also with an unexpected linguistic use of the word arrived in my inbox. And it felt too synchronous not to share: 

Hope is the best

If you could use regular reminders to hope even when the flame dips low, I write The Creative Courage Project for you: