He looked at me, standing up on the back of the room near the door, so tense, so close to tears, I was ready to open it and run out. "You held up your truth. Now go on holding up your truth. You want world peace right now. So don't be so optimistic, you might become complacent. You must take care of your aspiration to compassion. Just WANT to make these changes, just take it on with joy. If it doesn't matter to us how long it takes for world peace, we can have it right now, with complete joy."
Hope is a muscle, a practice, a choice that actually propels new realities into being. And it's a muscle we can strengthen. It is not the same as idealism or optimism. This kind of hope has nothing to do with wishful thinking. Hope as I've seen it lived is at once fierce and persistently joyful. I've come to understand this quality of hope as an essential foundation and power for the generative story, the generative landscape, that is emerging out of all of the rupture this moment in the life of the world has laid bare.