Every time I hear someone say something like "Everything is pointless." or "Nothing I do matters." I have a moment where I'm really happy and excited that they've cracked the code and can stop worrying and just go do something fun before I realize they're actually very sad.
My candidate dropped out of the race, I'm not actually expecting M4A soon no matter who wins what, there's a global pandemic I'm at risk for, and I'm always half waiting for my organs to all fail at once like John Larroquette's kid on that episode of House with John Larroquette.
Nihilism plus altruism.
"If nothing we do in this world matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do."
"If nothing we do in this world matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do."
(I didn't actually think all of my organs would fail at once until I saw that episode, and I still don't *think* it. Mitochondrial myopathies are very varied and individualistic, and that was dramatized fiction. I've lived long enough that kind of thing probably won't happen.)
I'm #TeamSunnyOptimism not because I think the world is unicorns and rainbows but because I know it's not. Life is an unrelenting horror show of absurd cruelty, and it is because of that, in the face of that, that I choose to hope.
If the world were good, why would I need to?
If the world were good, why would I need to?
The thing about hope -- and it has this in common with change -- is that it's not just a noun, a thing you have. It is a verb, an action.
Hope is a thing you do, which means it is a choice you can make. You might not feel it. But you can do it.
Hope is a thing you do, which means it is a choice you can make. You might not feel it. But you can do it.
That's where I think where things went wrong in the era of President Obama. Too many of us wanted hope and change, as things someone could give us, more than we were willing to hope and to change.
One of the things that people who knew Fred Rogers when he was alive have said is that he made a choice to be who he was, to be kind. To be neighborly. He wasn't naturally good. He wasn't born good. He did good. Doesn't mean the goodness was fake. The choice defined him.
I choose to hope. I don't know if that's who I will be for my whole life, however long that lasts, but it's who I am called to be now.
It's who I think I need to be, to get through these times and to maybe, if we're very lucky and very good, make a difference.
I hope.
It's who I think I need to be, to get through these times and to maybe, if we're very lucky and very good, make a difference.
I hope.
