Hope for a generation

People sometimes ask me: What’s the difference between hope and optimism?

I’ll do a deeper post on that soon, but in a nutshell I think Optimism is a short-horizon feeling, whereas Hope is a long-horizon practice.

And the kind of hope we need now?
It’s not the variety that helps us feel better in the moment.
It’s the kind that helps us do better—over generations.

The hope we need now bonds us back into a long line of responsibility.
The kind of responsibility our ancestors carried—
those who lived in deep relationship with the land,
who made decisions in service of the generations not yet born.

“Real progress can be made if we have a different orientation to time.” – Norma Wong

Zen master and indigenous transformational practitioner Norma Wong invites us to practice horizon-holding—
To prepare our people for a time we will never see.
Because that’s what love looks like, over centuries.

The future isn’t something we inherit.
It’s something we prepare the conditions for.

Not just determining the destination—the far flung shore beyond the storm.
but developing the navigation tools,
innovating with sails so they can capture the fiercest winds,
making maps, that charter the most courageous territories of our imagination

And this bonding practice will make us feel hopeful at the deepest level of ourselves.

“We are good at fighting. We are not as good at holding in our imagination what we love.” – Ross Gay

We can change that.
Let’s start with what we love.
Then imagine like our great-grandchildren’s lives depend on it—
because they do.

This is hope with boots on.
This is radical imagination as strategy.
This is long-arc living.

(I love it’s got its own theme song….)

If you want to take some action, Norma Wong can inspire you to envision horizons.

I encourage everyone to take a moment. Close your eyes and imagine something vastly more beautiful for the generations to come, and then plot those coordinates into the GPS of your heart.

Thinking of a very different future,

x Megan

P.S: Win Win Win of the Week: the Great Green Wall of Africa - restoring degraded land, halting desertification, and building climate resilience. It’s about long-term regeneration, not short-term returns.

P.P.S Did you encounter anything that felt hopeful to you this week? I would love to hear about it!

P.P.P.S Hope rhymes with Pope, and his passing made me think more about universal truth and the common humanity between us.