Whenever we open our televisions to watch the news it seems as though there is only bad news to be reported. One after the other we are subjected to the daily crimes committed in our area or the pessimistic predictions on global issues such as climate change. Aside from the one or two videos of people’s kind actions there seems to be no good news and more importantly no bright future to look forward to. To me it’s no surprise that more and more young people are becoming rather pessimistic about their future when faced with these kind of grim information.
This issue can be summarized in just three words : “ loss of hope”. The importance that hope possesses in our life can be explained through the story of “Pandora’s Box” . This parable describes a woman named Pandora opening a box. When she opens this box many evils are released into the world such as : death,hatred,disease, violence and madness. When all of these evils had left the box there was one last evil remained: hope. People consider hope to be foolish because where there is hope there is expectation. The fear of having our expectations crushed is I believe the reason why hopefulness and optimism is being demonized nowadays.
Optimists are viewed as dreamers that are expecting unrealistic results from the future. Even though the kind of optimism which is blind to the facts and reality is counter productive not all positive views of the future are deserve that kind of treatment. Take climate change for example. There is a community of people in the internet called the “climate doomers” that believe that the damage done to the earth is completely irreversible and any attempt or effort to stop climate change and its negative impact is futile and meaningless. This type of thinking is not only docile but is actively hurting efforts of saving the earth by discouraging anyone that is at least willing to try.
I would like to end these thoughts with a quote from Laini Taylor: “Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there’s no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”
