The impossible power of hope
Maybe about five years back, I’d go through something hard and tell myself I am doing this for the future; it is making me resilient, like a form of training, a warm-up. Then there’s now, that future is finally here, the one we prepared for. It is all still hard, almost certainly more demanding. If the best days are right now, and we still struggle, how do we cope? Are we preparing for a happy future that might not exist?
The above is my tweet from a few weeks back. To my surprise, I entered 2025 with something profoundly missing in life: hope — hope for an exciting, happy future. Lack of hope is way more problematic than one might imagine. Being able to look forward to future life events, people, and places helps us get through the mundane and stressful today. In fact, this phenomenon goes further; when you can look forward to something good in the future, your today automagically becomes bearable and even enjoyable. It’s like how, as kids, the thought of being able to play in the evening made school a bit easier. At the same time, it is also true that such evenings didn’t really arrive sometimes — for there was rain and homework.
To make today bearable, fruitful, and enjoyable, the supply of this most critical drug (in my opinion) must not stop. Alas, it is not all that easy to find as we grow up. In high school and college, test scores and statistics kept me going. In Singapore, it was a new job, and the excitement of learning powered me through the lonely COVID era. In Madison, the goalpost shifted to making the most out of grad school, and the excitement of solving research problems took over. I dreamt of solving SNARGs for QMA. The dreams didn’t come true, at least not entirely. But that doesn’t matter today; the pursuits gave me hope for the future, made me learn a lot and work hard, and in that they served their purpose.
The late 20s guide to hopelessness
As we grow up, our aspirations change, and what we care about also changes. Online programming competitions don’t inspire me anymore. I no longer wake up and watch a CPPCON talk on Sundays. My phone conversations with friends have changed; we no longer discuss travel, job profiles, hackernews, or politics. Instead, we inquire about the health of our parents, settling down, and wedding plans. Suddenly, one finds that things we worked so hard for are not all that relevant anymore.
On the other hand, in the rush to achieve those dreams of the past, some things took the backseat; somehow, they are all that matter today. The loved ones we used to have our morning teas with are now scattered around the globe. The friends we hoped to travel the world with and have our favourite hot chocolates with are now busy with their lives and work thousands of kilometres away. All the effort over the last few years, those long flights, sleepless nights, living through extreme cold, being scared and hiding in a corner during a tornado, making new friends only to say their goodbyes and move on; what for? If today, which is the future we went through hell for, is still hard, were any of the sacrifices worth it?
The above sketches how the kids with starry eyes and energy to change the world, after a decade of chasing their dreams, find themselves questioning their past decisions, which brought them so far from home. They accomplished much of what they thought mattered then, but today, it suddenly doesn't mean anything to them. Reading this, if you have followed this train of thought and have started feeling a little hopeless yourself, too, you’re not alone.
Manufacturing “hope”
Now that we’ve understood why this drug is crucial and how its deficiency develops as we grow up, we must go forth and band-aid this crisis. There are two axes that we must address. How do we, despite the emptiness and hurdles we face today, gather hope for the future so that what we are doing today once again feels meaningful and worthwhile? How do we forgive our past versions, which led us down a path filled with regrets?
A vision for the future
Life doesn’t always present us with goals, and future goals are needed to develop a sense of purpose when we perform our tasks today. In college, this is easy; we study to earn a degree. The goal is clear, and each moment spent studying serves this purpose. The same can be about money or skill development in the initial phase of our careers. But as the fire dwindles, the purpose of today’s chores starts fading away. The remedy is to build a vision of the future and attribute today’s tasks to this vision. It is like crafting a dream to pump a sense of purpose into our everyday life. You can envision anything from being CTO to having a loving family to being healthy. Imagining this future version of ourselves informs us of what exactly ought to be done. Attributing our present actions as contributors to this future vision or adding new tasks to our routine that take us closer to this vision is the essential next step. Get back out there and build towards this vision, your personal vision for self.
Future and not past
The late 20s also seem to be the age when we have spent enough time on the planet that we all have our own lists of unfulfilled wishes and/or regrets. The longer these lists, the more we question our own past actions. The more we question the past version of ourselves, the less hope we are going to have for the future. Generally speaking, the regrets and wishes can be, with some effort, mapped into a hopeful version of the future. Some examples go like this:
[Wish] “I wish I had a sister.” → “Someday, I’ll have someone I can care for, like a sister.“
[Regret] “I wish friends X and Y had moved here with me if only I had convinced them back in the day.” → "Someday, X, Y, and I will party together somewhere.“
This exercise frees us from the burden of longing for what we don’t have. It also forgives our past version of the regrets that make our journey look valueless. What is absent today will be there eventually, in some form, maybe not precisely the way we want. Right now, it is about preparing ourselves for those souls we will meet and trips we will cherish.
The hero’s journey
Seasons come and go, but the mission continues. The bold men and women on mission must, however, love themselves for the sacrifices they made on the way and free themselves from the burdens of what could have been. The power of hope makes the night feel a little shorter and the dawn not so far away! Let us make sure we are full of it and keep believing!