It is easy, in times like these to find ourselves feeling hopeless about the state of the world. Particularly, the state of the future, if there is any future to be had.

It is easy to think, “it’s over”, “we’re cooked”. “There is no more hope left.” “It’s the end of the world as we know it”…and I don’t feel so fine.

The end of the world seems to be the one thing in the world that is, evidently, nonpartisan. While your mileage may vary as to the cause of ‘the end of the world’, the belief in its inevitability is seemingly universal regardless of political or religious affiliation.

Hope in a brighter tomorrow, in any form is in decidedly short supply. Understandably so. How does one even begin to feel hope at a time like this? What does that even look like?

As someone who has faced some deep pits of depression over the course of my life, I can tell you that some days are easier than others when it comes to hope. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do now that will ultimately help you on this journey.

1: Curate your online experience.

This isn’t to say check out of current events entirely (is that even possible?). More like, curate your sources. There are a lot of people online who will use clickbaity titles of “we’re SO over” “we’re so cooked” “we’re SO DONE” to get eyes onto their content and that’s… fair I suppose. YouTube is a numbers game and certain temperaments get more eyes onto them; I can’t fault anyone for feeling the need to follow that in order to get their work seen. But the key is not to fall into that trap yourself. And when you do see even content creators you do like who may be falling into a rabbit hole of doomerist tendency or talking points that is a time to either respectfully bow out of their feed, if it’s a constant thing or maybe leave a respectful comment of why you disagree. The key here is respectful. Not harassing. It’s a fine line I know, you don’t want to come off as condescending either. The key is to simply respectfully push back against the narrative that we are doomed. That there is no hope whatsoever.

Narratives that offer a constant doom and gloom about the future aren’t helpful, for you or anyone else for that matter. Not to state the thing that everyone has said since the beginning of our current climate but “the feeling of hopelessness is kind of the point”. Hope is a radical thing at a time like this.

I’ll repeat that because it needs to be repeated.

Hope, is a radical thing in times like these.

Hope is in my not so humble opinion one of the most beautiful things in the the world, it’s the way in which we as humans keep ourselves from going mad and tearing ourselves apart and it’s not always easy. It’s something you have to fight for.
But it’s worth fighting for.
Because the future doesn’t just happen by accident. It’s not something that happens to us.
It’s built.
And step one of building a better future is to believe in that better future in the first place.

You can’t build a better future if you don’t think there’s going to be a future to be had.

That’s kind of the problem that we’re in currently. There are a great many people who think the end of the world is coming any minute now, so what’s the point of even bothering to consider the future at all? It’ll all sort itself out in the end.

And yes, even scientists agree that the world will, some day, end. But that day isn’t today.

And it probably isn’t tomorrow either.

No one has a crystal ball. We don’t know what is coming tomorrow or next week or next year. The only thing we have to go on is the hope that tomorrow will come. And that it will be a better day than yesterday.

So, curate your feed.
Find artists that you enjoy and support their art, their music, their writings. (There’s a whole thing about pity marketing that I find on Instagram especially which I find does not in fact help the whole hope thing so keep that in mind). Support them on YouTube and if you can their Patreon or even Kofi. Find people who are purposefully hopeful and positive about the world. (We do exist). Good news may feel hard to find but it isn’t impossible.

2: Take social media breaks – What this looks like for you is ultimately going to be different for everyone, but I find this, the more you do it, the more you step away from your phone the better you start to feel.

At the risk of sounding like someone’s boomer grandparent, sometimes you have to step into the real world.

While the online world is filled with real people; no matter what dead internet theory has to say on the subject, that doesn’t mean that it is representative of everyone around you. One thing that has really put things into perspective for me is to remember that there are 8 billion people in the world. Billion is hard to quantify but to give a little perspective, 8 billion in seconds is 254 years.

It’s easy to see something online with hundreds of thousands of views, even millions and think: Wow, this is all anyone is talking about. This is how everyone feels. But it’s a drop in the bucket when you realize that with 8 billion people, a few million seeing something isn’t even 1% of the total world’s population knowing about it

Think of it this way… there are people who have never even heard of Mr. Beast. (And how lucky they are).

It’s easy for things online to feel ubiquitous.

That isn’t to say that that feeling is invalid, or that it’s not concerning in other ways. Believe me, I’ve been on the receiving end of harassment campaigns on sites like Tumblr and it can be overwhelming and exhausting, so I’m not about to say that it’s not valid to feel any particular way about it. On the contrary. But that’s why taking a step back from the online world is so necessary. Because once you do, you realize that a lot of the arguments that exist online don’t really matter that often in the real world, especially when it comes to inter-community discourse. As a lover of fanfic, I know very well how easy it is to get caught up in discourse about this or that and then you step away from your computer and remember, oh yeah there is a world outside of this. This is not in fact the be all, end all of everything. And that’s a powerful thing.

3 – Time in nature and fresh air are crucial for your mental health.

At the risk of telling anyone to “touch grass”, it is important to take time to yourself to get fresh air and find nature where you can. I’m fortunate enough that there’s a lot of greenery around me so I’m able to pretty easily just enjoy nature and fresh air in a way that I wasn’t able to back when I lived in Vegas where the only nature we had was rocks and a few perennial trees that had been inexplicably taught to defy their better nature and live in the desert.

Having lush dense forests around you and rivers and lakes and rain really changes your mood. Being able to take some time to get physical distance from your phone and the news does wonders for your mental health. It’s a reminder that there are real important things in this world. One could argue that it’s also a reminder of the beauty of nature, and how important it is for us to protect it. Once you start to regularly spend time in nature or even just sitting outside you start to feel like, oh, this is what humans were meant to do. Make art, spend time in nature, breathe fresh air.

I enjoy walking, and dancing while I listen to music. Finding little things that you can do to move your body is also a crucial aspect of helping your mental health where you can. Whether that’s in a chair doing little stretches to keep yourself limber and de-stress or going for a walk or a hike.

4 – Journaling. On paper. By hand.

Part of taking a step away from your phone and screens in general has to be the power and importance of doing things by hand again. You would not believe how beneficial it can be for your mental health to journal your feelings in a notebook and get it out of your head.

Recent studies have shown the importance of writing things by hand for memory retention especially and as someone who has always enjoyed writing out things by hand, I’m hard pressed not to feel a little thrilled about that.

Not to mention that paper seems to be one of the few places where we can hope to have some privacy with ourselves and our thoughts. So much of the things we think or feel get posted onto the internet. Shared on Twitter or blogs or Facebook or Discord Servers or whatever else and a lot of that should probably be kept to pen and paper. Or with a therapist at best. Not every thought needs to be shared with the world and in fact, it’s a good thing to keep some things to ourselves. That’s the beauty of journaling.

At the risk of sounding like some Neo-Pagan spiritual wine mom, I find (personally) gratitude journaling to be particularly helpful. Remembering what I do have and not what I don’t keeps things in perspective.

Now you might be wondering, what’s any of this got to do with being hopeful about the future?

In order to be hopeful, you first have to learn to unclench your jaw and take a deep breath long enough that you can actually even think more than five seconds ahead. Part of the key of hope is finding things that bring you joy. And look while I can say: Read more books that bring you joy, read fanfic, write something, knit, find a hobby, draw, I know that is easier said than done if you don’t have energy after the end of a work day or even when you’re depressed.

I know the power of these things for me when it comes to helping me feel less depressed and more hopeful. Making art especially something physical with my hands is particularly beneficial for me, but I understand it’s not something every one can do so find what you can do that brings you joy whether it’s music or comedy or films or books and enjoy as much of it as you can.

5 – Consider what the future looks like for you, for your family, for a better version of the world:

This is the tough part, but a key part of holding out hope amidst the chaos. What does the future look like to you? A hopeful future. A brighter, better future. What is the best possible vision of the future that you can imagine? What does that look like for you? For your family and friends? Part of the key of having hope for a better future is that you have to see yourself as being apart of that future. You have to picture yourself as being in that better future and hold on to that.

It’s going to take time. Especially if you’ve never done it before, but it’s an important aspect of making the world a better place for all of us and making the future brighter, you have to believe that you are going to be apart of it. You have to be able to see yourself in it in order to believe that it’s worth fighting for. This is ultimately the most important step because in order for hope to mean anything, you have to have a vision of what you’re hopeful for.

Because when things are hard. When you don’t have the energy and depression hits the hardest and even getting out of bed feels like a chore, that vision of a brighter tomorrow is often what feels like the only thing that is going to keep you going.

We can’t ignore the realities of what’s going on around us, we can’t stick our heads in the sand and hope that the future will just happen. We can, however, help create a future by envisioning a better tomorrow, holding that in our minds when times are darkest, and working towards that collective better future, together.

Hope is one of the greatest powers that we have. Hope is what can change the world and I’d argue what keeps us going when we otherwise don’t know if we can. But crucially, hope requires work. It requires vigilance and choices and it requires you to see a future and yourself in it. It’s not always easy, but it is a radical and necessary thing.

I believe in you.