The Future Is What We Make It

26 Jan

Hope isn't passive optimism. It's an active choice we make every day about what we're willing to work towards.

Right now, it feels easier to surrender to despair. The hate, the division, the cruelty that's becoming normalised - it's exhausting to witness, let alone resist. And when everything feels like it's breaking, the temptation is to protect yourself by expecting the worst.

But here's what I keep coming back to - the future isn't something that happens to us. It's something we build, together, through the choices we make and the stories we tell about what's possible.

When we stop imagining better futures - when we accept that things will only get worse - we hand power to the people who benefit from our resignation. Despair is a form of permission. It says: do what you want, we've already given up.

I refuse to give that permission.

Not because I'm naive about what we're facing. Not because I think hope alone solves anything. But because I've seen what happens when communities hold onto hope even when it feels impossible. I've watched people build something better in the wreckage of what was broken. I've documented transformation that started with someone refusing to accept that things had to stay as they were.

Hope isn't about certainty. It's about possibility.

It's about recognising that while we can't control everything that's happening around us, we do have agency over how we respond. We can choose to be the people who show up for each other. Who refuse to let hate have the final word. Who keep building connection even when forces around us are trying to tear it apart.

This isn't about toxic positivity or pretending everything is fine. It's about acknowledging the reality of what we're facing while refusing to let that reality define what comes next.

Rob Hopkins talks about the importance of collectively imagining better futures. Not as escapism, but as a necessary act of resistance and creation. Because if we can't imagine something different, we'll never build it.

So here's my question for you…

What future are you willing to imagine?

What would it look like if we got this right? If we chose connection over division, if we built systems that actually served people, if we protected the vulnerable instead of exploiting them, if we treated the planet like the only home we have?

I know it's scary to say these things out loud. Cynicism feels safer than hope because it protects you from disappointment. But cynicism also guarantees we stay stuck exactly where we are.

We have a responsibility - to ourselves, to each other, to the generations coming after us - to hold onto hope and to give hope to the people around us. Not hollow hope that everything will magically improve. But grounded hope that says: we're not giving up, we're not giving in, and we're going to keep working for something better even when it's hard.