I’m an eternal optimist. I like to think things will always work out. The glass is always half full.

Turns out that’s not optimism. It’s hope.

What’s the difference?

“Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Hope … is an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” – writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me [1]

Hope is when things don’t look good.

“The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t.” – political prisoner Václav Havel, before he became president of Czechoslovakia in 1989 [2]

Hope is especially when things look bad.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [3]

Where are the signs that make me optimistic my actions will make a difference?

Turns out I act because I’m hopeful. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope [4]. Can I change the world? Can you?

However 2023 unfolds, may you always find hope.

[1], [4] Rebecca Solnit, “Hope in the Dark, Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities”, September 2006
[2] Paul Loeb, “The Impossible will take a little while”, August 2004
[3] Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “In My Own Words”, March 2002