For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about optimism and hope.
In recent years, it seems like New Year’s has increasingly changed from a time of optimism to a time of worry. I remember from 2015 to 2019, it was like we couldn’t wait to finish the year and start over fresh. But then we found that each year was more difficult than the last. Then 2020 took us lower than ever, and the next couple of years felt like a decade. I think we’ve learned our lesson for being overly confident in assuming what the new year holds for us.
On a personal level, I went into 2022 with the typical amount of optimism, only to be diagnosed with cancer within a few months. I spent the better part of the year receiving chemo and radiation. By this time last year, I was in remission, but my expectations for the new year were uncertain to say the least.
If I’m being frank, 2024 already looks bleak. Few of the problems from recent years have been resolved. Many have gotten worse. Waiting for us at the end is a presidential election that is shaping up to be just like the last, only everyone has had four years to become more polarized and more frustrated.
Coming into the new year, we may not be optimistic, but we can be hopeful.
What’s the difference?
While there is overlap between optimism and hope, there are subtle but significant differences between the two.
It’s helpful to discuss them along three lines: desire, probability, and agency (or personal action).
Optimism is typically thought of as a general disposition that the outcome of events will be positive, whatever the details and regardless of personal action.[1] In other words, it’s the belief that the things we want to happen will probably happen, even when there isn’t much we can do about it.
Hope, on the other hand, is a desire for a particular outcome that we can work toward, whatever the details and regardless of the probability.[2] In other words, it’s the determination that as long as what we want to happen is possible, we should do what we can to make it so.
Arthur C. Brooks distinguishes between optimism and hope in a similar way: optimism is a prediction of a positive outcome; hope is the determination of personal action.[3] He notes that it is even possible to remain hopeful despite not being optimistic. In fact, he recommends it.
I would summarize the difference this way. Optimism is a vague, passive attitude. Hope is an objective, dynamic resolve. Optimism is the belief that things will get better despite my actions. Hope is the resolution that I will act well regardless of whether things get better.
Why does this matter?
So, why would this be an important distinction to make going into the new year?
If we look at how this works out in a couple of ways, I think we’ll see why it’s important to be hopeful even if we’re not optimistic.
Politically, the people in power are constantly vying for our support. They often paint the situation as being essentially hopeless—that is to say, there’s nothing much we can do. What we can do is give them our vote in hopes that they can do something about it.
Economically, companies are constantly vying for our consumption. We are led to believe that our life is hopeless without a particular product. What we can do is buy this product that will make us more productive, more fulfilled, more recognizable, and so on.
In times when it is difficult to be optimistic, we are likely to look for a source of hope—both a reason and a direction to act. But if we are not careful, we will place our hope in people and things not worthy of it, that cannot deliver the positive results they promise.
Where is your hope?
Centuries ago, Christian philosopher Augustine of Hippo discussed hope and the dynamic role it plays in the life of following Jesus Christ.[4] He noted that hope justifies action despite a lack of knowledge about the future. In other words, the follower of Christ works to become the right kind of person regardless of the outcome. Augustine also noted how faith, hope, and love are deeply related, such that we hope for what we love and have faith that it will come to be (1 Corinthians 13:13). For the Christian, it is our loving relationship with God that causes us to hope for his will to be done—and consequently pray and act in faith for it come to pass (Matthew 6:10àJames 2:18).
More recently, N.T. Wright has written extensively about how many Christians fail to realize how dynamic Christian hope is. For many of us, our hope is confined to the distant promise of Heaven, and in the meantime all we can do is hunker down and wait for Jesus to return. After all, “Why try to improve the present prison if release is at hand? Why oil the wheels of a machine that will soon plunge over a cliff?” Wright explains, “That is precisely the effect created to this day by some devout Christians who genuinely believe that ‘salvation’ has nothing to do with the way the present world is ordered.” He continues:
“By contrast…Christian doctrine of the resurrection, as a part of God’s new creation, gives more value, not less, to the present world and to our present bodies. What these doctrines give…is a sense of continuity as well as discontinuity between the present world, and the future, whatever it shall be, with the result that what we do in the present matters enormously.”[5]
But do we want it?
In philosophy, the standard account of hope involves possibility and desire.[6] As long as something is possible, it is something we can desire as an object of our hope.
For Christians, we know what with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). Therefore, Christians should be people characterized by hope, even if we have few reasons to be optimistic. Jesus is our hope, the anchor of souls (Hebrews 6:19-20).
The only question is, do we desire it? Do we want God’s kingdom to come? Do we want God’s will to be done? If so, if we really do hope for God’s kingdom, then we will do something about it. That’s what makes it hope.
[1] Utpal Dholakia, “What’s the Difference Between Optimism and Hope?,” Psychology Today (blog), February 26, 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201702/whats-the-difference-between-optimism-and-hope.
[2] Claudia Bloeser and Titus Stahl, “Hope,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed January 6, 2024, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/hope/.
[3] Peter Attia, “Cultivating Happiness, Emotional Self-Management, and More,” YouTube, The Peter Attia Drive Podcast, accessed January 6, 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=glPXR3xAVbY.
[4] Bloeser and Stahl, “Hope.”
[5] N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 26.
[6] Bloeser and Stahl, “Hope.”