What To Do When All Feels Hopeless

Jeremy Courtney
February 03, 2023

It’s been a heavy week for a lot of us. And people keep asking, “What do you do when all feels hopeless?” So, today, we wanted to address that.

What should you do when all feels hopeless?

First, here are a few wrong answers:

❌ Give up
❌ Dilute your values
❌ Burn relationships
❌ Compromise your vision

But here’s what’s proven to work:

✅ Community

Now, I’m not saying “everything is easier in community”. In fact, many things are much harder. But we need each other in hard times.

Have you ever stopped and really looked at those two words? Each other. Each person who feels “other” than me, and each group that feels different than us—we need each of them. We need each other.

The things we have in common

So, what’s the connection between the killing of Tyre Nichols in Memphis and the little girl in Lebanon who came to our team with ideas of suicide this week?

Or our colleague Sahar who was kidnapped by the Islamic Republic of Iran this week and the Syrian refugee community who reached out asking for help after another charity cut funding?

In all cases, the “we” was not big enough.

The cops in Memphis wanted to get home to their people. They failed to see the harm they were about to do (to themselves) by excluding Tyre from the circle of “we”.

The clerics in Iran want security for their people. They fail to see the harm they are doing (to themselves) by excluding everyday citizens from the circle of “we”.

And so it goes…

We must expand our “we”

To combat hopelessness, we must expand our “we”.

We killed Tyre Nichols—black, white, blue… we.

We kidnapped Sahar in Iran. American, Iranian, Russian… we.

And we cut funding to Syrian refugees. Leaders, donors, staff… we.

Blaming “them” is easy. But it’s not just who they are, it’s who we are. And only by finally seeing ourselves in and on all “sides” of conflict, can we come to see our enemies for who they really are, as well: brothers, sisters, neighbors, and future friends.

Community = insurance

Giving up on hope is tempting. The key is to connect yourself to a community of people who are generally oriented toward hope, generative activities, and building a more beautiful world. You don’t gotta be positive all the time. The community just needs to move on vision, creation, service, and growth.

A lot of people give up when love gets hard. In fact, some will even band together around destructive energy and call it “community”. That’s not the community we’re talking about. Rejectionist communities all fail.

So, here are a few principles the HUMANITE community is constantly using so we don’t give up on love:

🐣 Never stop growing. We frame our challenges as a chance to expand ourselves and grow. Inner growth. Growth in our teams. Growth in how we relate to each and every other.

💪 Everything is making you. This is not the same as believing that “everything is good”, “God is testing you”, or “It’s all gonna work out in the end.” The fact is, sometimes tragedy ruins people. What hardship makes of us is entirely up to us.

No 💩, no 🪷. You can voice this however you want: no rain, no flowers; no mud, no lotus; and more colorful versions. I’m not saying it doesn’t stink. But some people are just so eager to wallow it in. When life dumps on you, take what you can from it and turn it into something beautiful.

All of these work best in community. It’s hard to pray when you’ve stopped believing. It’s hard to speak these things over yourself when you’re already sliding into despair. This is where staying connected to positive, generative people matters so much.

The road ahead

If I’m being honest, I think hopelessness is going to increase in every country over the coming years. Which makes me increasingly grateful for you and this growing HUMANITE community.

You know how to stay positive, generative, and full of peace.

You’ve been through enough together to not give up on love.

And you know the value of pressing into hard things for the sake of your own growth… and for each other.

The world where everyone rises is at hand…

Stay the course, friend. We need each other.

Jeremy
@thejcourt

Reply

or to participate.