Corona Virus: Finding a Realistic Hope Amid Hopelessness
Lessons from Disney, Einstien and our essential workers
While Growing up in Northern Ireland, my two boyhood idols were Walt Disney & Albert Einstein. My fascination arose from the fact that they both represented two poles of creativity.
In essence, Disney was all about using his imagination to create the new and use his gifts artistically to bring things into being that did not exist before.
By contrast, Einstein was a master of explaining what was already there, and the concepts he developed enabled people to change their approach to physics and matter. Even though he had crazy hair and was a bit eccentric, he solved some of the biggest puzzles of our time.
The life stories of these two people who seemed to change the world were something that fascinated a young man like me. Many an afternoon was spent in my local library reading and wondering what made them tick and what I might learn about a realistic hope in my conflict-torn society.
To me, these two men showed what it meant for humans to envisage something in their heads and develop new thinking that would change the world. Though they both faced personal adversity during their life journey — they were able to inspire hope in humanity in differing ways.
Reading their personal stories in my formative years inspired me to a life of trying to reconcile what is — with what could be. All within the realisation that in any one moment, life can be hopeful and hopeless at the same time for us all.
Choosing Compassion over Greed — Hope over Fear — Generosity over Anxiety.
From Africa to North America and many other places, I have found myself spending time with those who want to keep finding realistic ways of hope amongst hopeless situations.
Amid hopelessness, ordinary folks who do extraordinary acts of kindness manage to choose compassion over greed, hope over fear, and generosity over anxiety.
As the current Corona Virus has no boundaries- in the same way, kindness has no limitations, and we can all choose to create moments of realistic hope in the lives of others:
Zambia- Kate, a midwife who spends day after day, year after year with people who have limited access to healthcare, education, and essentials.
The UK- Gemma has a heart for all those affected by the current surge in knife crime to have a place to be heard, and to equip parents, teachers, and others with the skills to recognise the signs of gang culture and exploitation of our young people.
Canada- Zack, a homeless shelter manager who I found to be loving and serving the most vulnerable people in Canadian society.
Holland- Pem, a dutch poet who had a passion for reconciliation in the West Bank, and devoted her life to increasing the values of a global society that sought to treat us all as equal.
My own family members serving as key workers during this pandemic.
Our neighbours who have rallied to help us set up a distribution point to help those with food security issues
These are but a few of the folks who find the strength and energy to display a posture of hope amid situations of hopelessness.
In my mind, two questions are always present when I read about or meet such people:
Who did they draw this hope from?
What experiences sculpted the behaviors they now display?
Discovering a Realistic Hope
Many folks are comparing what we are going through to what happened in World War Two when the norms of the world also shifted beyond what people had known previously.
After WWII a hopeful narrative emerged across our planet as societies were shaped for humanity to create more- to live longer, go to the moon, to empower women, to educate more children, use emerging technology to save time.
And by the 1970s a middle class emerged across the western world that had money in their pocket. There was a feeling that the world was only going to get better as workers sailed into a generous pension and a happy retirement.
Many Sci-Fi films were made about how we might be going to the moon for our holidays and have a car that could fly!
Then a few things happened that shook this hopeful narrative to its core:
- 9/11
- The financial crisis of 2007–2008 which cast a shadow of pessimism over the future.
- Mass immigration across the globe has led to the mixing of cultures that seemed to create fear and uncertainty in national identities. This void of fear was filled by a rise in national populism and creating a dualism that made some people seem less human than us.
- Soaring financial inequality between individuals and countries.
- The birth of social media seems only to make us more fearful and exposes our brains to a volume of information that no other humans have ever experienced. It’s worth pausing to reflect that the invention of the printing press in 1450 took centuries to impact our world — while the birth of the internet has instantly and comprehensively connected billions of people worldwide in the space of a few decades.
Journeying from hopelessness to hopefulness
While the COVID-19 pandemic has rocked all our societal foundations in a manner that none of us could ever have imagined, and we witness our families and friends in a constant state of anxiety. It is worth reflecting on what the children’s host Mr. Rogers said his mother told him when he watched scary news:
‘Look for the helpers.’
As our cleaners, nurses, truck drivers, store clerks, emergency services, carers, scientists, farmers, and others continue to model a desire to keep our loved ones safe and healthy. I’m quite confident that both Disney and Einstien would be delighted with our current creators of realistic hope.
Maybe it is the response of our key workers that we find a ‘Realistic Hope,’ not a life that is always going to be great, or a life that is always fearful. But, a lived existence that will be shaped by how we respond to hopelessness in our lives and by the choices we make to change the future.
Hope and fear are something experienced by all us and is embedded in the structure of our brain. The ‘flight or fight’ response has evolved in our frontal cortex. Recent studies indicate that directing our thoughts towards the positive — hope — results in our frontal cortex communicating with subcortical regions deep in our brains. Hence, the human tendency to hope is a consequence of our evolution.
You cant go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. ~C.S. Lewis
When this global pandemic goes past — and as the wonderful lady in the video reminds us, it will pass, stadiums all over the world will roar with thunderous applause for our essential workers.
Meanwhile, during this crisis, a question for every individual and organisation to reflect on might be, how we would answer the following in two years:
What did you learn about providing a realistic hope to your neighbours during this pandemic?
An enduring memory of this pandemic for many generations to come will be the identification of who the real key workers are in our societies.
And we will be presented with an opportunity to honor these heroes by redesigning our societies to be kinder, generous, and hope-filled places.
The values and actions of those of our heroes on the frontlines who amid hopelessness continue to find a realistic hope will shape emerging generations with a new imagination for a fairer, kinder world.
Maybe the most significant change for humanity to grasp must first take place between our ears as we seek to develop our vision of realistic hope for our world after this crisis.
Whereas Disney and Eienstien’s visions for the greater good shaped the minds of previous generations; the values, and actions of our key workers — who amid hopelessness continue to find a realistic hope — will shape our emerging generations with an imagination for a kinder world.
The reality for all of us is that things are never always fantastic, or indeed, never terrible, and rather than trying to create the perfect life — it takes practice for us to figure out what a realistic hope might look like in our own lives.
Disney, Einstien, and the others I outlined above all demonstrate that when we put the fear of failure and judgment from others and follow a desire to be dealers of hope to the world — all of us can find a realistic hope amid hopelessness.
