Hope for or Hope to? What is the Difference

Hope is incredibly important to us for our wellbeing. Without hope, we are left with despair and with hope we are left with possibility and optimism.

Recently I listened to an interesting idea on two kinds of hope.

They are very different and affect us very differently.

There is ‘hope for something’ and there is ‘hope to something’.

Hope for is a passive kind of hope, a hope where we can sit on our couch and wish for something different. For example, we could hope for the end of Covid tomorrow or we could hope that our community becomes more caring in nature.

Although it is possible that these things could happen, the person hoping is helpless in the outcome and that in itself can bring on a kind of sadness. It is a recognition that the hope is placed in someone else who may or may not fulfill our hopes

Hope to is a more active kind of hope. It is the kind of hope where we acknowledge our own ability and responsibility to do something to make the change. I hope to help someone in my neighbourhood is a first step to actually doing that. It has the emotional effect of energizing and creating the feelings of ability and control and these result in a much happier and empowering feeling.

We all have hopes, but what kind of hope do we wash ourself in – the kind that is hope for…. Or the kind that is hope to?

At the Happy Community Project, we try not to waste our time on hoping for things we can do nothing about. Instead we hope to enable people to build happier communities that are more socially connected, belonging and caring.

We have the tools and ability to do this, we have proved many times we are very good at it. All we need is people like you who want to share our hopes to create more connected, belonging and caring communities.

Our next workshop starts January 16^th.