#349: Dealing with Crisis: Choose Hope

You have every right to not feel well, to be anxious, to look at the world with trepidation. And yet that can’t be everything. We need to choose hope.

If you feel the world isn’t how it should be, you’re right. No one probably recently got up in the morning and figured, “Yeah, this is great now. This is how it’s supposed to be.” No, it’s not. However, when has it ever been perfect for all? I mean, all of us have had perfect moments. All of us have had times, hopefully, where things went well. So when we say we wanted this to be going well, us doing well, then we typically mean more than just one person. Or maybe not. Maybe. Okay.

How can we go on like this? How do we find the energy? Me personally, it helps being a historian, being a political theorist, teaching also human development. I have tools that help me handle the world as it is now. Tools of knowledge, tools of reflection, tools of putting things into perspective. And yet I have to use those tools maybe a little bit more than I should have.

But objectively, things could be much worse. Objectively and subjectively, that’s not the best reasoning. That’s not the best reason to feel better. How can we find a way to feel better about the world, about us, about those close to us, about the future, about everything?

I could give you arguments, but I’ve learned that if you really aren’t doing well, any argument will just sound like some cynical exercise in convincing you to just buck up and just whatever. That doesn’t work.

A more difficult but maybe also more easy path is to say, “Well, yeah, it is what it is.” But as that t-shirt I once saw said, life is about how you react. We are given the gift of living in these circumstances, which gives us a chance to figure out something about ourselves. How can we make meaning in a world where people don’t focus on meaning as they should? How can we make sense out of things that are difficult to understand? How can we live with imperfect leadership and put imperfect leadership in contrast to truly evil or truly abysmal leadership?

Now, most people in Western countries probably have the feeling that their leadership is not what it could be. But at least we’re not living in Putin’s Russia, in Xi’s China, in civil-war-torn countries. It could be much, much worse.

If you have time to watch a YouTube video like this—a rather frivolous activity—I mean, maybe it’s life-saving. I don’t know how life-saving what I’m telling you here is, but hopefully it helps you. But it is, to a certain degree, frivolous. You could be doing other things. The fact that you don’t have to, that you don’t feel the need to, tells me that wherever you are, it’s not as bad as it could be.

Find tools. And even if it’s something like what you hear me say here, find tools that help you. Choose whatever is life-affirming. Self-serve.

I’ve studied quite a bit of psychological and psychoanalytical techniques. I’ve been delving into wisdom cultures, different religions. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only form of therapy that helps is a form of behavioral therapy. Do more of the things that make you happy. Do less of the things that make you unhappy. If you have to do the things that make you unhappy because that’s your job, then you have to find things that counterbalance that, that make you feel better. Reframe things. Not “I have to go to work,” but “I get to go to work.”

Choose the meaning in the work. It’s easy for me. I teach. I write poetry. I labor on a novel. Okay, until that is done, it’s going to be labor in many ways. But figure out how to give yourself a little bit of grace. If it’s not good, then admit it—you’re not worse for admitting it. And then figure out how to take care of yourself so you can take care of others.

That’s all it is. Do we have reasons for hope? Well, I can tell you all kinds of things, and maybe one day I will. But I do think we have reasons for hope—only if we enact them. I also believe, not in the woo, but in some form of manifesting. We can, by the way we think, by what we do, by the kinds of people we talk to, by the kinds of things we read, consume, watch—we can manifest a way of approaching the world that hopefully gets us more happy.

I am re-watching old Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. I must say season one is better than I remembered it. Unpopular opinion, but I don’t care.

Find something that used to work before. Try to rewire your brain in a way that you almost do time travel. What were the things you were watching, listening to, writing, doing when you were happiest? Maybe do them again. Yeah, you’re older, but so what? Blessings from the past can still be blessings today.

Yeah, I don’t want to drag this out. If you have ideas what else to talk about, put them down there—it helps the algorithm too. I hope this helps. I don’t know, maybe I’m just talking into the void, but let’s just see.

Thanks for listening. If you like this, do put in a like. Do comment. Let me know what else you want to hear. I also would remind you I also have a website, blog, and more. So if you don’t see me on YouTube, there are other channels that also need tending to. Otherwise, thanks for listening. See you when you see me—and believe in yourself. That helps sometimes.