What is Hope and Why Does it Matter?
Why should I have hope? How can I possibly have hope during a time of great negativity? These are some questions that you may be asking yourself, or your family and friends. Questions that you, or the people close to you, just might not have the answers to. Life in recent years has been hard. Multiple terrible events have weakened our ability to be hopeful. Tragedies like Hurricane Milton in Florida, the genocides in Gaza, Sudan, and Congo, and the continuing Russian invasion of Ukraine have negatively impacted the lives of many people around the world. Issues like these darken our world and echo the injustices of the past.
So I guess that begs the question, is there any reason to be hopeful? Well, that is the question we are here to answer. Let’s spend some time looking at the impact of hope, and whether or not it is worth caring about.
Why Hope?
One of the best ways to figure out if hope is valuable is by looking at examples of it in action. Stephen Jay Gould, a doctor and professor at Harvard University, was diagnosed with abdominal mesothelioma, an incurable form of cancer, in 1982. The median life expectancy of patients with this form of cancer is around 8 months. Gould immediately went to the library to do some research on mesothelioma, despite the shock and distress he was in after hearing the news. Gould refused to give up and wanted to see what he could do to improve his disease. In his words, this is what he found:
“[M]atch people with the same cancer for age, class, health, and socio-economic status, and, in general, those with positive attitudes, with a strong will and purpose for living, with commitment to struggle, and with an active response to aiding their own treatment and not just a passive acceptance of anything doctors say tend to live longer” (Gould, 1982, p.78).
Gould began reminding himself of all the aspects of this description that favoured a longer life. He was in good health, well-off financially, a high-status member of society, and had a strong will to live so that he could continue to support his family. Gould was now hopeful that he could live longer than the 8-month median expected of a mesothelioma patient. Gould died in 2002, 20 years after his diagnosis.
Although this example of Stephen Gould’s extended life span is heartwarming, many cancer patients do not have the same luxuries to extend their lives as Gould did. What about mesothelioma patients who are not wealthy? Or ones who are not well respected in society? Do they have reason to be hopeful? Well, considering that the median life span is 8 months, it doesn’t seem so.
Continuing our search for reasons to hope, studies show that academic and athletic performance is also improved when people are hopeful in themselves and their socioeconomic situation. Research done by Jennifer S. Cheavens, Scott Michael, and C. R. Snyder looks into bot the academic and athletic spheres to see the impact of hope. Snyder et al. (2002) took a group of students with high and low hope levels entering university or college. Snyder and researchers found that “… students with higher hope when entering college had significantly higher grade point averages, were more likely to have graduated, and were less likely to have dropped out six years later than those with lower hope scores” (Snyder et al., 2005, p. 121-122).
So now that we have at least some reason to believe that having hope and being hopeful is beneficial, let’s see if we can find ways to have hope in 2025.
How to Hope
A large portion of having hope or being hopeful is having a positive mental attitude. A positive mental attitude is similar to being hopeful in the sense that a person or group of people chooses to believe in, or focus on, the positive circumstances and or outcome of a situation, rather than the negative ones. So when we look at the common saying, “is the glass half full or half empty?” A person with a positive mental attitude would say half full. Someone filled with hope is likely to say the same, but being hopeful focuses on looking to the future, more than it does on the present or the past.
But how can we have hope for something in the future, something that we can’t know for certain is coming? Sarah Stitzlein, a Professor at the University of Cincinnati, looks at the different ways that students can learn how to have hope in the classroom. In somewhat of a contrast to having a positive mental attitude, Stitzlein believes that to have hope “we need mechanisms that allow us to enact and sustain hoping across time, and habits provide those” (Stitzlein, 2020, p. 114). Stitzlein uses habits within a classroom setting as examples for teaching hope to kids and young adults. The teacher’s job in the classroom is to make sure that students’ academic needs are met. Teachers are encouraged to provide students with a supportive environment that promotes positive thinking and discourages inappropriate language.
Stitzlein also believes that students’ basic needs must be met, making them feel safe and secure to dream big. Teachers and staff play a role in fostering hope within students, but the physiological needs that kids and young adults require are largely dependent on their parents or guardian(s) providing it for them. Unfortunately, according to the Government of Canada, thousands of youths across the country do not have secure parental figures or guardians to provide the physiological needs that allow the next generation to hope.
Overall, the ability to hope is dependent on a combination of having a positive state of mind and making sure that our physiological needs are met. Stephen Gould shows us how having hope can be psychologically and physiologically beneficial if you meet a certain socio-economic standard. Professor Stitzein gives us the blueprint for obtaining hope, even if it may not seem within our current reach according to the Canadian Government.
Hope is sometimes about believing without seeing. We must choose to believe in a greater future for ourselves, and the world, even if we can’t visually see that possibility. Think of hope as the fuel for our bodies and minds: it gives us the energy to keep pushing through times of hardship and distress. Without hope in our lives, we would be stagnant, floating with thoughts of defeat and despair.
References
Gould, S. J. (2013). The median isn’t the message. Ceylon Medical Journal, 15(1), 77-
81.
Cheavens, J. S., Michael, S. T., & Snyder, C. R. (2005). The correlates of hope:
Psychological and physiological benefits. Interdisciplinary perspectives on hope, 119-132.https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=eC5hMjeidg4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA119&dq=benefits+of+hope&ots=FalrkRk0RN&sig=ya8BJhjkcSSd0zEMGgY3oMt7j_8#v=onepage&q=benefits%20of%20hope&f=false
Stitzlein, S. M. (2020). Learning How to Hope: Reviving Democracy through our
Schools and Civil Society (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190062651.001.0001
Canada, I. (2024, December 2). Government of Canada. Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada. https://housing-infrastructure.canada.ca/homelessness-sans-abri/reports-rapports/youth-homelessness-2024-itinerance-jeunes-eng.html
