Great Thinkers: How to Find Hope When You Need it Most

Introduction

Hope tends to reveal its value only when it’s hardest to find. During calm periods, it feels effortless, like an ambient sense that things will work out. But when life feels bleak or the world seems darker—when losses, conflicts, or uncertainties pile up—hope becomes something we have to fight for. But what exactly is hope, and how do we cultivate it when we need it most? Ahead, we’ll explore five Great Thinkers’ insights about finding hope in dark times.

Zaki: Hope Is Trust in Other People

Let’s begin with a definition of hope from Jamil Zaki, a psychologist and the head of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. In Hope for Cynics, Zaki describes hope as the opposite of cynicism. Cynics have little faith in others—they assume people are selfish, institutions are corrupt, and efforts to create change are doomed to fail. Hope, by contrast, is an act of trust. It’s the belief that, despite their flaws, people are capable of the goodness and cooperation necessary to solve problems and improve the world.

But hope isn’t just blind optimism; Zaki explains that it’s a research-backed position. His lab has found that people consistently misjudge each others’ decency and openness. You may expect not to get along with someone, especially if there are major differences between the two of you, but if you engage with them anyway, they’ll usually meet you with warmth, curiosity, and cooperation. So, Zaki says, hope reflects the reality that most people are often more trustworthy and kind than we assume—and that we can work together for the common good.

Zaki also suggests that, because hope is a form of trust, it requires you to be vulnerable. Cynicism can be tempting because it seems to protect you from disappointment—if you have low expectations of others, they can’t let you down, so you won’t feel hurt. But by closing yourself off to disappointment, you also close yourself off to the possibility of positive connections. Hope is worth cultivating because it reopens you to that possibility and protects you from the negative effects of cynicism on health and happiness.

If you struggle to trust others, Zaki offers a few recommendations for expanding your capacity for hope. First, investigate your cynical beliefs: Examine their content and where they come from, gather some evidence, and see whether they actually hold up. For example, if you believe that people in your community are selfish, look for moments when they behave generously. You might visit a local “buy nothing” Facebook group and notice that neighbors regularly share goods, offer help, or support one another without expecting anything in return.

Second, Zaki recommends reading positive news stories that focus on solutions instead of problems. (You can start with Shortform’s Smart Solutions for Big Problems series, which explores solutions like participatory budgeting and community fridge and pantry programs). Finally, Zaki says that to cultivate hope, you should proactively practice trusting others when it feels safe to do so—for example, by asking someone for advice or by sharing a vulnerable story.

Solnit and Pinker: Let History Inspire You

Building on an understanding of hope as trust in humanity’s innate goodness, activist Rebecca Solnit argues that you can cultivate hope by looking to the past. In Hope in the Dark, she suggests that history is full of moments when people confronted seemingly insurmountable challenges and still managed to create meaningful change. For example, she points to the American Civil Rights Movement, highlighting how ordinary people helped dismantle systemic injustices through persistent organizing, nonviolent protest, and collective action. She provides further examples in A Paradise Built in Hell, showing how people come together after major crises, like Hurricane Katrina, to support one another and rebuild their communities.

Solnit’s examples reveal that even in moments of uncertainty and hardship, people are capable of extraordinary cooperation, creativity, and resilience. This, she argues, is good cause for hope: It shows that even when the odds are stacked against us, positive change can emerge from sustained collective effort.

When the future seems bleak, Solnit might urge you to reflect on encouraging historical lessons instead of giving in to despair. Similarly, in Enlightenment Now, psychologist Steven Pinker offers a few observations on world history that can inspire hope for the future. He argues that while media slant and our cognitive biases may lead us to believe that the world is doomed, a closer look at long-term trends tells a different story.

Pinker highlights that, over centuries, humanity has made remarkable progress in areas like health, education, and human rights. Violence has declined, life expectancy has increased, and more people than ever enjoy access to knowledge and opportunity. At the same time, poverty is in decline, world governments are becoming increasingly democratic, and technological innovation promises to solve remaining problems (like environmental degradation). By focusing on these measurable improvements, Pinker suggests, we can cultivate a form of hope grounded not in wishful thinking, but in evidence of what human effort has already achieved—and what it may continue to achieve.

Seligman: Learn Optimism, Take Action

The examples of historical progress Solnit and Pinker describe demonstrate that human effort makes a difference—you can improve your situation (or the world) by taking action. But what if you struggle to believe this? What if, despite historical precedents, you just can’t see things getting better? Psychologist Martin Seligman, founder of the positive psychology movement, would argue that you’ve cultivated learned helplessness, a mindset that makes challenges seem insurmountable, causing you to give up without trying.

Seligman emphasizes that learned helplessness develops over time, through experience: You’ve been through difficult situations where you couldn’t change the outcome, so now you believe you can’t change the outcome of any important situation. You may have learned this attitude as a child, when you were truly powerless to change your circumstances or take control of your life. But as an adult, you’re not powerless—and just like you learned to passively accept negative outcomes, you can learn to respond optimistically instead. Seligman explains how in his book, Learned Optimism.

First, Seligman recommends proving to yourself that your actions do matter. For example, you might donate money directly to someone in need and ask them to let you know how it helped them, or volunteer your time and observe the tangible impact of your efforts. Or, you could write letters to people in influential positions, like politicians, to help push the changes you’d like to see in your community. These actions can help you cultivate hope by reinforcing the belief that positive outcomes are possible and that you can have a hand in bringing them about.

Second, Seligman says you should dispute your pessimistic beliefs by considering whether they’re true or helpful—they likely aren’t. Therapist Russ Harris expands on this process in The Happiness Trap: To defuse negative thoughts, he argues, you must take a step back and realize that those thoughts are merely stories your brain tells you to help you survive. This helps you separate your beliefs from reality, which creates the space you need to accept the difficult feelings your thoughts inspire. Once you accept them, you can move beyond them and focus your attention on next steps—the actions you’ll take to improve your situation.

Seligman suggests that over time, challenging your own pessimism in this way helps you develop a more hopeful disposition. You can see that there’s a path toward a better future—you need only take action to move along it.

Hanh: Just Wait

If none of the strategies we’ve talked about work—if you’re feeling utter hopelessness or despair—you might be experiencing what some experts call a “dark night of the soul,” a deep depression characterized by a loss of meaning, motivation, and connection to what once felt important. This state can feel unbearable, as if all sources of light and purpose have vanished. It can feel so unbearable that it leads some people to end their lives. However, there is hope: Experts say that the only way out of the dark night of the soul is to go through it. You must try your best to endure the discomfort, seeking help when necessary, and wait for it to be over.

Waiting out feelings of hopelessness may sound too passive to count as good advice, but this method is foolproof. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh explains why in No Death, No Fear: Everything in existence is fundamentally impermanent; in other words, the only constant in life is change. Consider how a cloud becomes rain, rain becomes a river, the river joins an ocean, and the cycle continues. Similarly, like all feelings, hopelessness and despair arise, linger for a while, and eventually pass.

So, in the darkest moments of your life, you can trust that change is inevitable and that clarity, peace, or hope will return in time. You wouldn’t be the first to wait it out—the poet May Sarton, for instance, wrote in her Journal of a Solitude that her only way of dealing with abject depression was to wait for it to pass.

So, what should you do while you’re waiting? Hanh suggests learning to live in the present moment. When you despair, you’re caught up in past disappointments and your fears for the future. In contrast, when you’re fully present in the moment, you can step out of the distressing stories you tell yourself and into direct experience, where you can verify that you’re currently safe. With practice, you’ll build deeper awareness of life’s impermanent nature, and you’ll begin to approach challenges with clarity and compassion rather than panic. Even if your worst fears for the future are realized, you’ll recognize that this too shall pass—and consequently that there’s no need to feel hopeless.

Great Thinkers’ Advice for Cultivating Hope

• Jamil Zaki (Hope for Cynics): To have hope, you must trust in other peoples’ capacity for goodness and cooperation. Practice trusting others by investigating your cynical beliefs, reading positive news stories, and being vulnerable when it feels safe to do so.
• Rebecca Solnit (Hope in the Dark) and Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now): History is full of moments when people created meaningful change, even with the odds stacked against them. As a result, the world is better than it once was. Let this inspire you.
• Martin Seligman (Learned Optimism): If you feel powerless to improve your life or the world, you’ve probably cultivated learned helplessness. Counter this by learning optimism—show yourself your actions matter and that positive outcomes are possible.
• Thich Nhat Hanh (No Death, No Fear): Everything is impermanent, even utter hopelessness. So, if you can’t overcome it, just wait it out. Eventually, it’ll pass and you’ll feel hope again. In the meantime, build resilience by learning to live in the present.

What Do You Think?

Think about a time when you felt hopeless about something. What helped you move through that feeling—or what might have helped? When you look back at that experience, do you notice any moments when other people’s kindness or cooperation gave you reason to hope again? What’s one small action you could take this week to strengthen your sense of hope or to help someone else feel more hopeful?