HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL?
BY: DR. NURIT ISRAELI
“Hope springs eternal in the
human breast.”
- Alexander Pope
Is your glass half empty or half
Tfull? his age-old question, a
proverbial expression, is
used to demonstrate that
the same situation can be viewed
from different angles, and that
the chosen view can lead to ei-ther
pessimism (half-empty glass)
or optimism (half-full glass). The
problem is that this phrase looks
at reality from an inflexible, bi-nary
perspective: the either/or
dichotomy ignores more nuanced
options.
The objective reality is that, in
a glass containing liquid to the
half-way mark, both states are
true: the glass is half-empty but it
is also half-full. Its bottom half is
full and its top half is empty. We
can also say that both sides of the
glass are full: there is liquid in the
bottom half and air in the top half,
so what seems empty to us can, in
effect, contain substances that are
more challenging to see. Perhaps
we need to acknowledge both
the emptiness and the fullness
to move on wisely...
Regardless, as Ralph Waldo
Emerson said, “People only
see what they are prepared to
see.” Since the current reality
prompts us to see threats to
our way of life with hindrances
and limitations, I wish to focus
here on the glass half-full per-spective.
2020
August Not a Pollyannaish,
simpleminded naiveté, but an
¢outlook which enables us to see
COURIER the positive options in spite of
the constraints.
This is not an easy time to feel
hopeful. We are surrounded by
Envision the post-pandemic
TOWERS losses, news reports keep on
days:
flooding us with gloomy proph-ecies,
• What do you most hope for?
and we are faced with
• What do you look forward to
hardships we are unfamiliar
and believe can happen?
SHORE with. Personally, since March, I
• What have you learned about
have grappled with news of four
yourself during this pandemic?
beloved family members who
• Have your priorities changed?
NORTH contracted the Covid-19 virus, as
• What do you wish your future
well as with grief over the death
to hold?
of one of my dearest friends. He
• What are the top items on
22 asked me, years ago, to eulogize
your post-pandemic bucket list? him if I outlive him, so I deliv-ered
my first-ever Zoom eulogy
– pouring heartfelt words onto
the screen of a laptop.
It felt surreal to attend a funer-al
in my living room: a digital
funeral, accessed via a computer
application. I had to use a Zoom
link to join, then shared grief with
family and friends who showed
up in framed squares, displayed
side-by-side, their images filling
my computer screen. For me, few
things have marked the uncanni-ness
of the coronavirus era more
than the new reality of a Zoom
funeral. Just putting together the
words “Zoom” and “funeral” felt
odd. It was like watching a movie,
except that I was a part of it. Still,
the ability to honor the dead col-lectively,
in real-time, even if vir-tually,
felt comforting. I was grate-ful
for the opportunity to take part
in a ceremony which ended up
being spiritual and meaningful.
All in all, in recent months, the
emptiness seeped in, uninvited. It
has not been easy to focus on the
half-full part of the glass. Harder,
but not impossible...
Optimism is a central con-cept
in positive psychology. It
is viewed as a trait, a part of a
person’s cognitive, emotional,
and motivational stance toward
the future; a core belief that, in
the future, positive experiences
will outweigh negative ones.
Optimists tend to believe that bad
events are temporary setbacks,
challenges that can be overcome.
According to research, genes are
at least partially responsible for
our outlook on life. Genes can
partially determine whether we
are inclined to focus on the pos-itive
or on the negative. However,
our genetically determined out-look
is modifiable! Optimism is
a skill that can be acquired and
developed.
A pioneer researcher of
optimism has been psycholo-gist
Martin Seligman, former
president of the American
Psychological Association,
one of the founders of Positive
Psychology, and author of the
book, Learned Optimism: How
to Change your Mind and Your
Life. “Optimists don’t avoid
life’s storms,” he stated “but
they weather them better and
emerge from them better off.”
Seligman’s research, supported
by later studies, demonstrates
that optimism can be learned.
One strategy is imagery (or,
time travel): envisioning a better
future. My father used to disclose
that, in his most difficult times,
when he escaped Europe all
alone just before WWII, he coped
with moments of hopelessness
by imagining a future in which
everything was going to be OK.
The spiritual leader Tich Nhat
Hanh agrees that hope makes
present hardships easier to bear
by focusing on the future: “Hope
is important because it can
make the present moment less
difficult to bear. If we believe
that tomorrow will be better, we
can bear a hardship today.”
Using a poetic perspective,
Emily Dickinson likens hope to
a bird that is permanently perched
in the soul. No matter the circum-stances,
hope is always present
within us, ready to be retrieved
when needed:
“’Hope’ is the thing with
feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the
words –
And never stops – at all – “
It is important to note that
looking at the world through a
lens of hope does not erase grief
over losses. Optimism does not
preclude momentary bursts of
pessimism. Dr Joan Borysenko, in
her book, It’s Not the End of the
World: Developing Resilience in
Times of Change, views a mindset
of optimistic realism as the pre-ferred
viewpoint. An optimistic
realist looks reality in the eyeball,
recognizing challenges and hard-ships,
while remaining positive
about the future. Optimistic
realism encompasses trust in the
not-yet-known: believing in our
own self-efficacy and staying open
to possibilities, while keeping feet
on the ground.