Here's a Morality Hack -- Be Less Responsible to Deepen Real Hope

When you think about the big problems that most concern you at this time, what do you hold yourself accountable for?

• Do you feel panic to urgently save the situation and wake up others to join you in taking action?

• Do you challenge yourself to do everything you can despite knowing that it's never enough?

• Do you go through your days lamenting the loss of what was, and feeling heavy-hearted about the future?

• Do you throw your hands up and say "it's way too big, I can't do anything... back to TikTok?".

Over the past several years, I have toggled between all of these responses. I am used to being able to contribute in a good way to situations I care about. I am used to taking responsibility. Even one of my spiritual "go-to" sources, the Pathwork, encourages me to address the patterns deep inside in order to see results on the outside. And yet, linking responsiblity and action to influencing an outcome can be dysfunctional. It can lead to discouragement, denial and distraction from action or even remembering to care, simply in order to cope.

Radical Hope invites a different response: less responsibility for a specific outcome, and instead staying adhered to "a good way" as Johnathan Lear learned from the Crowe people, or stoking and drawing from a state of warm-heartedness, as Cynthia Bourgeault describes. The kind of hope our times requires is hope that admits that we do not and can not know it all. Yes, we know more than we used to, and the signs are not encouraging. But, as Albert Einstein says "“ we still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us”.

When I use "a good way" as a compass, I am able to move forward, to take steps, to act in small and big ways. In the kind of mysterious and complex ecosystem of creation in which we live, I bow to all that I do not understand.

Join me in accelerating Hope beyond Hope.