Heroes Not Zombies

I don’t know how this works. Seriously. I don’t. You could claim it’s about coincidence but when it happens it seems much more significant that a random juxtaposition of events.

Here’s what’s happened. First off, I’m writing a weekly series of blog posts entitled “The A to Z of Becoming” where I’m writing about one verb each Sunday. This week I reached “H” so wrote about HOPE.

Secondly, I’ve subscribed to a bimonthly magazine called “Resurgence” for many, many years, and the March/April issue arrived the day before yesterday. I popped it in my bag to read on the train on the way to work on Monday morning.

So, imagine my surprise when I opened “Resurgence” at a seemingly random place and saw the article “Seeing with New Eyes” by Chris Johnstone. Right in the middle of the page, in a large “pull quote” is

Active Hope is a practice, like t’ai chi or gardening.

“Active Hope”?

Johnstone says there are two meanings of hope (and I didn’t think of that when I wrote my post on Sunday) – the first referring to “hopefulness, where our preferred outcome seems reasonably likely”, and the second refers to desire. I like that. Makes sense to me. The first meaning precipitates us into hopelessness where our preferred outcome seems highly unlikely, but the second can set us off in pursuit of our goal.

Then, what about this for a heroes not zombies idea……..?

Passive hope involves waiting for external agencies to create the future we desire. Active Hope is about becoming active participants in the story of bringing about what we hope for.

Active Hope – the deliberate choice to move in the direction of how we want to change.