According to the American Psychological Association (APA), hope is “the expectation that one will have positive experiences or that a potentially threatening or harmful situation will not materialize or will ultimately result in a favorable state of affairs.
The need for Hope arises when we fear the worst and yearn for the better. However, hope is also linked to optimism – the attitude or outlook that good things will happen and one’s wishes or aims will ultimately be fulfilled.
Hope is a learnable skill. For example, one can learn to have an illness-specific hope that symptoms will improve, perhaps by responding to new treatments. In addition, we can have a transcendent hope that we will lead a good life despite our illness, possibly focusing on the joy of relationships or work and leisure pursuits.
Hope tends to make us inventive. According to Dr. Hellman, when you are hopeful about the future, you set goals to help bring that future about, identify pathways that let you strategically plan how to achieve that goal, and maintain the mental willpower to follow those pathways.
We can increase our resilience and ability to strive and thrive when we have hope. With hope, you can create a better you and a better world.
Writer: Dr. Etepe Dugah