Prioritizing Action

What is the use of hope?

Perhaps if we are hopeless, that could lead to inaction—why should we try, if we can't fix things? Belief in our ability to make a difference might light a fire that gets us to take action. And we can make a difference; that is an objective fact. Depression and burnout occur when we cease to believe we can change things.

But perhaps sometimes hope itself can lead to inaction, if we believe that things will get better anyway without us.

There's a quote that communicates a similar idea: "There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, ‘Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,’ and an optimist who says, ‘Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine any way.’ Either way, nothing happens." (Yvon Chouinard)

Maybe we should turn our eyes away from hope and towards our actions—what we can do to make things better. Rather than lazily daydreaming about a better future, we can actively spend our hours working towards creating a better future.

Perhaps hope is beside the point—or maybe it's just another tool that is sometimes useful, sometimes not.

At the end of the day, it is the actions we take that will change things.