500 Words a Week - Wise Hope and Wise Action

Life is hard, life is difficult. Challenges are constantly thrown our way to face, be that with personal injury or illness, work, global pandemic, or injury or illness to those around us. In the face of this challenge, Brad Stulberg in “Master of Change” talks about two of the prevailing attitudes that occur. We can bury our head in the sand, delude ourselves or express toxic positivity. Or we can in turn with the challenges become pessimistic and despairing. What both attitudes have in common and why they are easy to adopt is because they absolve you of doing anything. The first denies anything is wrong, therefore if nothing is wrong there is nothing to change. The second takes a stance that says action would be futile, so why bother.

Brad encourages us to adopt a more middle stance between these two attitudes, one of optimism, one of wise hope and wise action.

Brad states what wise hope and wise action mean is that we see a situation for what it clearly is, and then with a hopeful attitude say “Well, this is what is happening now, so I will focus on what I can control, try not to obsess over what I can’t, and do the best I can. I’ve faced other challenges and other seasons of doubt and despair, and I’ve come out the other side.”

What Brad talks about with wise hope and wise action is that these aren’t just pathways to productively engage in change and disorder. They also help support mental and physical health. Hopelessness and helplessness are feelings associated with depression and physical decline. On the opposite end, toxic positivity is associated with an increase in the levels of stress hormone cortisol, as delusion requires significant work from us.

What I’ve taken from this is that we need to catch ourselves when we find that we are drifting towards the attitudes of denial and despair. We need to remind ourselves of what we can control and do the best we can with that. This is a concept that frequently comes up in so many books, so many podcasts, and even religions, so it’s probably about time we pay attention to it.

Two things to conclude on from “Master of Change” to think about:

“Ultimately we are talking about a need to be more hopeful, more committed, and more dedicated to the basic challenges of living in a complex world.” – Bryan Stevenson

“If we are to have any chance at improving a broken world, we must not become broken people.” – Brad Stulberg