Dear friends,
As we look ahead to the new year, hope can feel…in short supply.
Not because we don’t want it.
But because so much feels uncertain, polarized, and beyond any one person’s control.
If you’re feeling that thinness of hope, you’re not alone – and you’re not broken.
This week, I read two New York Times pieces on hope-one new, one older-that stayed with me. They approached hope from different angles, but together they offered something I think many of us need right now:
a sturdier kind of hope – a hope that doesn’t depend on certainty.
If you’d like to read them, here they are:
When hope is defined too narrowly
One idea in these pieces particularly struck me – how our modern definition of hope can accidentally set us up to feel hopeless.
We’re taught that hope means believing something is achievable:
that we can see a clear pathway, that we have control, that success is likely.
But when the stakes are huge-climate change, war, political division, mental health, belonging-none of us can guarantee outcomes. Even together, progress can feel slow, fragile, or uncertain.
So if hope requires certainty…
then hope becomes fragile.
And when it breaks, despair rushes in, disguised as realism.
An older, sturdier kind of hope
The newer essay reminded me of something spiritual traditions have insisted on for a long time:
Hope is a virtue to be practiced, not a prediction to be managed.
That version of hope doesn’t require confidence.
It doesn’t deny suffering.
It doesn’t pretend things are fine.
It simply asks:
Will you keep turning toward the good anyway?
There’s a line I love that expresses this beautifully:
It’s not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to stop trying, either.
And then this line stopped me in my tracks:
“It is a somewhat battered hope that improvements are possible if we push hard enough.”
That’s the kind of hope I want this year.
Not shiny hope. Not “everything will work out” hope.
But battered, practiced hope – the kind that keeps showing up.
SeeingHappy is a hope practice
Photography is one of the ways I practice that kind of hope.
Because seeing is not passive. Seeing is a form of hope.
Every time we choose to look with care –
every time we notice beauty, tenderness, courage, repair –
we refuse to let despair be the only story.
A photograph can be a quiet vow:
This matters. This is real. This is worth protecting.
And when we share those images, we do something even bigger:
we remind each other that goodness is not gone –
and that we still have agency inside uncertainty.
This week’s photo prompt: Hope as a Verb
This week, take (or find) a photo that answers one of these questions:
What does “trying” look like?
Where is the good being practiced?
What or who is quietly resisting the darkness?
What is growing, repairing, enduring?
It could be as ordinary as:
a neighbor helping, a meal made with care, a candle, a hand on a shoulder, the first bud you didn’t expect, a moment of forgiveness, a laugh.
If you feel like sharing, reply with your photo or tag #SeeingHappy: because hope multiplies when we witness it together.
Hit reply and send me your photo — I’d love to feature a few in next week’s newsletter.
A Closing
You don’t have to feel hopeful to practice hope.
You don’t have to be sure to do good.
You don’t have to see the whole path to take one step.
This year, may we practice a sturdier kind of hope – humble, brave, and persistent.
The kind that resists the darkness daily-whatever may come.
With you in the practice, here is my photo of hope:
My grandson and my new puppy – the love that immediately showed itself between a little boy and a little dog is precious and gives me hope for the future:
From,
Mandy
