Hope builds resilience
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve started swimming at our local pool. Two or three times a week I get up early, pull on my swimming costume and drive ten minutes up the hill, ready to slowly swim 40 or 50 lengths.
Our local swimming pool is beautiful. It’s the last surviving Edwardian bath-house in Leeds, and has been standing in our local community since 1904. It has huge stained glass windows, old fashioned pool-side changing rooms and an ornate tiled floor - swimming there feels like connecting with a little piece of history.
Recently, a new exhibition has been installed around the building, with large boards sharing details of that long and colourful history. They’re so interesting - teeming with information, photos and stories of the role the building and it’s facilities have played over the last century and a bit.
When I’m in the water however, all my eyes can pick out from those boards are the titles. And one title in particular always catches my attention - it’s on a board that details how a local community group came together to take over the running of the baths after the local council threatened to close it ten years ago, and emblazoned above the story are the words “hope builds resilience”.
I’ve thought about those three words a lot these last few weeks, as I’ve slowly dragged my body up and down the lanes over and over again. I’ve thought about how pertinent they feel for the world we live in right now. I’ve reflected on how hope is the thing that has kept us going through these challenging and relentless few years, how hope has allowed us to build resilience in the face of so much stress, sadness and uncertainty.
Hope has never been more necessary than it is right now. At a time when it’s easy to look at the world around us and feel nothing but despair, hope has never been more essential. Because change starts with hope. Without believing that things can be better, we would never muster the urgency to take action - a fact that is true whether you’re talking about a small personal goal or a huge global one.
If we didn’t have some hope that we could make a positive impact on our planet, small changes such as recycling or switching to a greener energy provider would feel pointless. If we didn’t have some hope of leaving a toxic work environment and finding a job that suited us better, we wouldn’t bother applying for that role we spot on Linkedin. If we didn’t feel hopeful about falling in love we’d never go on dates, if we couldn’t hope for a better political future, we’d never bother voting. Hope is vital.
And yet, we don’t talk enough about it. We aren’t encouraged to share our hopes and dreams for the future - instead, we’re told to be realistic. We aren’t encouraged to think about how things might get better - instead, we pour all of our collective energy into worrying about the many ways that things might get worse. You only have to watch the news for 10 minutes to see that hope isn’t the focus - worry, negativity and fear is.
And so I wanted to remind you today of the importance of hope. I wanted to remind you that dreaming of a better future isn’t whimsical or a waste of time - it’s a crucial first step in the change process. Whatever it is that you’re hoping for, the very act of hoping for it is important. So treat it that way - nurture it, take care of it, protect it from the negativity of the outside world. It will help you build resilience, and one day, that tiny seed of hope might just lead to something incredible.