The Case for Hope

If we consider the discord, the loss, the fragility of the last twelve months, it is easy to feel hollowed out. With all the frightening things happening, the question hangs in the air: What is the case for hope?

It is a fair question. But if we study history, something vital is revealed: Hope is not a fantasy. Hope is a muscle. And right now, we must exercise it.

Václav Havel spent years in prison fighting a totalitarian regime that looked like it would last forever. To him, hope was not the same as optimism.

Optimism is just the belief that things will turn out well.

But Hope? Hope, Havel said, "is the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." It is the willingness to work for something because it is good, not just because it’s easy.

As we look toward 2026, we need that kind of hope.

Viktor Frankl’s survival of the horrors of Auschwitz teaches us that everything can be taken from a human being but one thing: “the last of the human freedoms,” he writes in Man’s Search For Meaning, is, “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances."

History’s thrivers did not wait for the odds to be in their favor. They moved. They acted. And because they acted, the world shifted.

The secret history of change is that it rarely comes from the top down. It is the work product of people who refuse to accept the world as it is… and find the courage to do something about it.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt spoke of a beautiful concept called "natality." It means that with every new action, a new beginning comes into the world. We are not just survivors of 2025; we are the architects of 2026.

So, do not look for hope in the headlines. You won't find it there. Look for it in the mirror.

The poet Rumi wrote that “the wound is the place where the light enters you.” We are all wounded. But we can choose to be awake.

We know what matters now. Let us enter this new year not with a blind wish that it will be easier, but with the determination to make it better.