Sunrise over a suburban street

What gives me hope

Something strange has happened these first few days of 2025. I feel hope. I know there is no objective reason to be hopeful right now. As I write this, the city where I grew up is being ravaged by wildfires. A number of my friends had to evacuate, and at least one of them lost their home. And we know things will get much worse as this year goes on.

But then I think about some of the worst days of my life. I’m not talking about days when I’ve been mildly inconvenienced or when somebody ticked me off. I’m talking about days when I suffered incredible losses, when someone I loved had died, and when I suffered terrible setbacks in my career. These were days when I didn’t know how I was going to move forward. I didn’t know I was going to make it. I didn’t know how I was going to pull through.

Then you wake up in the morning, and you realized you survived. You made it. And you have a chance to start over, even if it means you must start over with nothing.

That’s where hope comes from.

Hope doesn’t come from denying the truth, putting on blinders, and indulging in wishful thinking. Hope comes from survival. Hope comes from endurance. Mostly, hope comes from action. It’s when you decide you’re going to take charge of your situation, and you’ll do whatever it takes to move forward. Hope comes from building community. You find other survivors and those who can offer support. You gather resources and energy so you can rebuild.

Hope is infectious. The hope you build for yourself inspires others. It fosters empathy and unity. At a time when regressive forces want to divide and frighten us, hope is a powerful tool to defend freedom and foster progress, justice, and humanity.

This is the hope we need to take us through 2025. We need endurance, action, and courage to get us through what will certainly be a harsh and challenging year.

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