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Hope as a Statistic


We all have one (or many) of those friends. That friend who can’t sing, act, or dance and yet still declares a theatre major in college. If you’re like me, you experience a horrible sinking feeling and get a doe-eyed look on your face when they tell you the news. You really, really want to be happy for your friend, but you’re convinced they’ll never get a job, and they certainly won’t be making it on Broadway in this century. 

That sinking feeling associated with my friends coming out of the theatre-major closet, is the same sinking feeling I get when my Yazidi refugee friends talk about gaining asylum status or resettling in a new country. Even now that I am no longer working directly in the camp, my Yazidi friends send me WhatsApp and Facebook messages about their hope of being reunited with their families in Canada, Germany, or Iraq on a daily basis. It's terrifying to know that most of them will not realize their dream - at least not in the next several years. 

I’ve really wondered how to respond to these hopeful declarations and I’ve come to a few conclusions. How we respond to feelings of hope is just as important as having any hope at all. Here's my dichotomy of the three most common approaches to tackling a hope-encounter below:

The Statistical Approach 

Treat hope like a statistic. With your theatre major friend, don’t provide any type of commentary; simply state the facts. You could spout a few numbers such as, “Making it on Broadway is as likely as winning the lottery….but the lottery has a better payout than being a Lion King cast member.” The equivalent response for my Yazidi friends would be something like, “Refugee acceptance rates in America are currently at the lowest point of the last ten years” or “Less than 25 percent of refugee applicants will be reunited with their families in Germany this year.” 

The Concerned-parent Approach

The concerned-parent approach is a little softer than the statistical approach for dealing with hope. Ask questions to help your friend draw their own conclusions without destroying their hope entirely. It might sound something like this, “Do you have a backup plan? What are you going to do if things don’t work out?” With this approach, there is no need to explicitly cast your doubt on the situation; your friend will pick up on the doubt by the tone in your voice and come back down to earth on their own. 

The Admiration Approach

Then there is the admiration approach to dealing with hope. Hope is terrifying. Hope is exhausting. Hope is painful - nine times out of ten more painful than just giving up and resigning to a dreary fate. Harboring hope is the most courageous approach one can have towards the challenges of life. 

So when your friends tell you about their hope, cheer them on and give them a pat on the back. Tell them that you admire their hope. Tell them that you want the best for them. Tell them that no matter how the situation turns out, you’re there. 

I’m not saying that when nurturing hopes we should be pollyanna-ish or unreasonably optimistic. Being hopeful is not being blinded by a false reality or caught up in the impossible. Hope is about focusing on what is possible and working with heart, might, mind, and soul to get there.

If hope was a statistic, then your theatre-major friend would be hopeless. If hope was a statistic, then my refugee friends would be hopeless too. If hope was a statistic, no one would ever apply to Harvard, try out for the basketball team, research a cure for cancer, or marry Prince Charming (I’m still holding out for that last one).

So when I hear about hope, I treat it like what it is: Bravery. 

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