Hope is More Than Wishful Thinking

‘We need hope like we need air’

Hope is stronger than hate. After all, hope is not just wishful thinking; it is a resolve that cannot be broken.

The father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, spent years studying this and other positive emotions and said that hope is “when you expect the best in the future, and you work in order to achieve it.” This can be true in the most desperate of situations.

Hope embodies agency and willpower. Even when someone high in hope finds their way blocked, they proactively generate alternative paths.

“We need hope like we need air,” writes Brené Brown; without it, we sink into hopelessness and despair.

The Ukrainians fighting against the continuing onslaught offer us all hope. And they remind us that hope is about standing up, often against the odds.

For that reason, they will never lose; they can’t. Because whatever happens, that hope, strength, and resolve will remain — undefeated. There is nothing that Putin’s army can take from Ukraine that will challenge their defiance because they fight for their families, their way of life, their freedom, and their home. No invader can take that. It is not theirs for the taking.