Towards a More Hopeful Future
How might we use our feelings to create more intelligent, sustainable, and hopeful futures?
(a blog post originally created for Intelligent Futures)
During this week's Monday Insights session Carlota - our Communication Intern - walked us through how we might use our feelings to create more intelligent, sustainable, and hopeful futures inspired by the book Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're In Without Going Crazy.
When confronted with the unsettling reality that we are on the verge of an ecological disaster (on top of a global pandemic), our first reaction might be to feel hopeless. Even if we commit to being the change we want to see in the world, no one can guarantee us that other folks will actively make the transition towards a more sustainable and responsible way of living on time to ensure the survival and quality of life of future generations.
Active Hope deconstructs three positions one can adopt regarding the future of our planet:
Business As Usual: continuing to do business as usual ignoring the need to collectively transition towards a more sustainable way of living.
The Great Unraveling: living in a state of despair and pessimism to such an extent that no potential action towards a more sustainable way of living seems worth taking.
The Great Turning (aka Active Hope): actively hoping for and creating a more perfect future.
At IF we like to focus on the third option.
Macy and Johnstone define the Great Turning and Active Hope as - "the commitment to act, for the sake of life on Earth as well as the vision, courage, and solidarity to do so."
In sum, the story of Active Hope consists of allowing feelings such as grief, outrage, and despair to flow through us, transform us, and inspire us to take action. In Active Hope mode, we align our values with our behaviors and actively imagine and create more intelligent futures one day at a time.
The good news is that actively participating in this process can be as simple as choosing the paper bags over the plastic ones at the supermarket cashier (or even better - bringing our own). Individual actions might seem insignificant, yet they can help materialize the desire of conscious citizens, which can then influence decision-makers.
In addition to individual choices, our practice at Intelligent Futures constantly searches for leverage points in our community and organizational systems to make a positive change towards more sustainable and inclusive systems and practices.
Our friend Matt Grace shared some suggestions on how to begin applying this new mindset - one that recognizes things such as littering and smoking in front of children as negatively impacting the planet and therefore eligible to be socially discouraged. Listen in on how might we elevate the consciousness of regular folks in the street:
(check post on IF's web page to listen to the audio bit)
By shifting our consciousness, raising awareness, and acting accordingly, we choose to participate in the Great Turning we choose Active Hope.
From experience, we can affirm with confidence that doing things the right way is not always the easiest one. Yet, we've allowed ourselves to feel enough to know that this is the way we choose to live our professional and personal lives. Choosing Active Hope has the potential to ensure our children's future while also bringing purpose and meaning to our days.
"In choosing our story, we not only cast our vote of influence over the kind of world future generations inherit, but we also affect our own lives in the here and now. When we find a good story and fully give ourselves to it, that story can act through us, breathing new life into everything we do.” -in Active Hope
So if at any point you are feeling overwhelmed, remember you’re not alone. We’re all part of a vast web that together can contribute to the regeneration of our planet. When we're resting, we like to think that someone else is doing the work for us - perhaps you. And if we don’t actively hope and act now, then when?
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