In our current political landscape, despair feels entirely rational. I watch institutions that once I trusted show their fragility. I witness the erosion of civil discourse into tribalism. And I see complex global challenges—threats to democracy, inequality, climate change, —met with paralysis or regression.

My news feed gleefully delivers a relentless stream of crises, each demanding my attention before I’ve processed the last, interspersed with commercials for unknown diseases I have yet to acquire, but must ask my doctor about.

Social media amplifies my worst fears and deepest divisions. It’s no wonder that so many oscillate between rage and numbness, fighting the creeping sense that things are fundamentally broken and getting worse. To feel hopeless in such times isn’t weakness or pessimism—it’s a reasonable response to genuinely difficult circumstances.

The Paradox of Hope

Yet paradoxically, hope becomes most essential precisely when it seems least justified. This is not the cheap optimism that denies reality or insists everything will work out fine, or New Age-manifesting your highest desire. Rather, it’s a more muscular hope that Barbara Brown Taylor describes as “the refusal to accept the present as final.” Hope, in this sense, is an act of defiance against despair’s seductive certainty that nothing can change.

Thomas Merton understood hope as fundamentally different from wishful thinking. In his contemplative writings, he distinguished between hope rooted in our own plans and expectations—which inevitably leads to disappointment—and a deeper hope that trusts in possibilities beyond our limited vision. Merton wrote about the gift of being able to see past the “illusions of a false and separate self” to recognize our profound interconnection.

I’ve often heard clients share their experience of hopelessness as being their story of isolation. They experience themselves as powerless when facing enormous, overwhelming odds because they believe themselves to be alone. Yet, when this inner shame is shared in a group, the falsity of the story drops away.

In community we find acceptance and understanding. Alone, we remain disconnected. True hope emerges when we stop trying to control outcomes and instead open ourselves to participating in something larger than our individual anxieties.

Looking Under the Streetlight

This shift in perspective finds an unlikely ally in the Nasrudin stories, those wise-fool tales from Sufi tradition. In one famous story, Nasrudin is found searching for his lost key under a streetlight. When asked where he lost it, he points to his dark house across the street. “Then why are you looking here?” the passerby asks. “Because this is where the light is,” Nasrudin replies.

The story is often told as a joke about human foolishness, but it contains a deeper wisdom about hope. Only a fool keeps searching where the light already shines—in our familiar arguments, our established positions, our comfortable despair. Real hope requires us to search in the darkness, in the uncomfortable places where solutions might surprisingly lie.

Clinging to our Explanations

Another Nasrudin tale tells of him carrying a door on his back through the desert. When asked why, he explains that if robbers come, he can close the door so they won’t see his valuables. The absurdity reveals our tendency to cling to useless protections, to carry heavy burdens that provide only the illusion of safety. This sadly illustrates too many MAGA followers.

Our hopelessness can become that door—something we carry that we believe protects us from disappointment, but actually just weighs us down. It is not just MAGA folks, though. Our reluctance to leave behind our beliefs and prejudices just furthers the pain, reinforcing false notions that we cling to because we are afraid of the unknown.

Dark Night of the Soul

In one of my darkest moments, after my husband died, a neighbor of mine introduced me to the writings of Barbara Brown Taylor. I am ever grateful for this gift.

Taylor, in her writings on darkness and faith, challenges us to find what she calls “the treasures of darkness.” She argues that our cultural insistence on light, clarity, and certainty has caused us to lose the wisdom that only darkness can teach.

In times of hopelessness, like where we are right now, when we cannot see the path forward clearly, we have an opportunity to develop different capacities—listening more carefully, moving more tentatively, trusting our other senses. Taylor suggests that darkness is not the absence of God or meaning, but a different kind of presence that teaches us to let go of our need to control and comprehend everything.

Empty Minds or Mind-FULL-ness

This is where mindfulness strategies become practical tools for cultivating hope. When hopelessness overwhelms me, it’s usually because I’m lost in catastrophic thinking about the future or ruminating on failures of the past. Mindfulness gently returns me to the only moment where I have any agency: right now.

This simple act of noticing my breathing interrupts the spiral of despairing thoughts and anchors me in my body, in this moment. The gentle reminder to return to my breath creates the space needed to reel in my spiraling thoughts. And, there are times when those reminders need to become more insistent.

I like to think of this like watching a movie. There may be all kinds of chaos on the screen, but I am just observing it. I can name the actions without judgment. The hero may shake a fist or cry out to the Gods, “Everything is hopeless,” but all I need to do is remember I am an observer, not a participant.

I also try to practice gratitude every chance I get. I notice small, concrete things: the warmth of my coffee, a stranger’s smile, the fact that I wrote this blog today despite how hard it felt. This isn’t toxic positivity—it’s training my attention to see what else is true besides my despair. Because the world is larger than my suffering.

Take Action Toward Something Good

Hope is not passive waiting—it’s active participation in the world you want to see. Whether that’s calling a friend who’s struggling, volunteering, creating something beautiful, or simply choosing kindness in a difficult moment, action generates hope in ways that thinking never can.

Merton, Taylor, and the Nasrudin stories all point toward a common wisdom: hope is not about knowing everything will turn out well. It’s about staying engaged with life even when we can’t see around the next corner. It’s about searching in the darkness, putting down our useless doors, and trusting that there are treasures even in times that feel broken.

The world’s problems are real. Despair is understandable. And yet, your presence here, reading this, wondering about hope—that itself is a small light. Hope begins there, in the willingness to keep searching, keep breathing, keep participating in this mysterious, difficult, precious life.