The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times(9)

“I’m always a little skeptical,” I said, “of attempts to quantify something as intangible as hope, but there seems to be some interesting research that hope has a profound impact on our success, happiness, and even health. One meta-analysis of over a hundred hope studies found that hope leads to a twelve percent increase in academic performance, a fourteen percent increase in workplace outcomes, and a fourteen percent boost in happiness. What do you think of all that?”

“I am sure hope makes a significant difference in so many aspects of our life. It impacts our behavior and what we are able to achieve,” Jane said. “But I think it’s also important to remember that while statistics can be helpful, people are moved to action by stories more than statistics. So many people thank me for not putting statistics in my lectures!”

“But don’t we want to tell people the facts?” I asked.

“Well, let’s put them in the back of the book for those who want all the detail.”

“Okay, we can add a section of Further Reading for those who want to learn more about the research that we discuss in the dialogue,” I said, and then asked Jane about the communal nature of hope. “What do you think is the relationship between the hopefulness that people feel in their own lives and their hopefulness about the world?”

“Let’s say you’re a mother,” Jane replied. “You hope that your child is going to be well educated, get a good job, be a decent person. You hope that in your life you’re going to be able to get a good job and support a family. That’s for you and your life. But your hopes are obviously extended to hope for the community and country you live in. Hoping your community will fight a new development that will pollute the air and affect your child’s health. Hope that the right political leaders will be elected to make your hopes easier to attain.”

It was clear, as Jane was saying, that each of us has our hopes and dreams for our own life and our hopes and dreams for the world. Hope science has identified four components that are essential for any lasting sense of hope in our lives—and perhaps in our world. We need to have realistic goals to pursue as well as realistic pathways to achieve them. In addition, we need the confidence that we can achieve these goals, and the support to help us overcome adversity along the way. Some researchers call these four components the “hope cycle” because the more of each we have, the more they encourage each other and inspire hope in our life.

The science of hope was interesting, but I wanted to know what Jane thought, especially about how we could have hope in troubled times. But before we could explore this question, Dr. Anthony Collins, Jane’s colleague in Gombe, came in and told us that the National Geographic film crew needed Jane. We stopped for the day and agreed to pick up the next morning to discuss hope in the face of crises. Little did I know that by the next night, hope would suddenly become even more urgent—and elusive—as I faced a crisis of my own.





How Do We Have Hope in Trying Times?



I was awoken early in the sticky heat of the Tanzanian summer morning by the murmuring of the muezzin call to prayer. In the pink dawn light, as the blue water and blue sky were brightening, I looked out at a fisherman in a tiny wooden boat, more like a dugout canoe, who was throwing a delicate white net on the water, hoping to catch a fish. He threw it again and again, each time pulling it in and plucking out the sticks and leaves and occasionally a plastic bag and bottle that he caught, but no fish. Surely, it was hope—and hunger—that got him up each morning to feed his family.

When I arrived at Jane’s house later that morning, she met me in the back garden and pointed to a dark stain on the knee of her pants.

“It’s blood,” she said. As we walked in her large and wild garden, Jane showed me where she had tripped the night before and cut her knee.

She explained how it happened. “I was holding the candles up here,” she said, raising her hands high, “so I could see where I was headed, but not the ground below. Someone said, ‘Mind the step,’ but by that time I was already flat out.”

Jane seemed unruffled by her injury.

“My body heals fast,” she said.

“You’ve had worse, I’m sure,” I said, trying to reflect her keep-calm-and-carry-on attitude.

“Oh yes. Look at this,” Jane said, pointing to her cheek, almost relishing the dent that was a likely sign of a cracked bone.

“What was that?”

“It was an interaction with a rock at Gombe.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Well, if we’re going to talk about it, I’ll tell you in detail, because it was dramatic—”

But before she could begin, the dogs ran up and jumped up on us affectionately. One, Marley, was a small white dog with short legs, something like a cross between a corgi and a West Highland terrier, with high tufted ears. The other, Mica, was a larger brown and black mix with the floppy ears of a Lab.

“All rescued,” Jane said. “Mica came from a shelter started by a friend. And Merlin found Marley wandering on the streets, homeless. We have no idea of their past history.” She petted them as she began her story.

“It happened twelve years ago, when I was seventy-four. I was climbing up a slope that was really too steep. It was silly of me, but the chimp had gone somewhere up there and I wanted to try to find her. It was skiddy and the dry season, and there was nothing much at the side to grab on to, just bits of dry grass that came away in my hand. However, I got nearly to the top, and there just above me, was this big rock, and I thought I’d just pull myself onto that rock and then onto another that I could see above it—and then I’d be up. So I reached up, grabbed hold of the rock, and to my horror, it just came out of the earth. And it was about that big”—Jane held her hands two feet apart—“and it was very, very solid and heavy. And so it landed on my chest and we tumbled down together—I think I ended up on my side, sort of clutching the rock to me! The slope, like I said, was steep and about thirty meters—a hundred feet—to the bottom. If something hadn’t pushed me to the side, into some vegetation that I didn’t even think was there, I wouldn’t be here now. I was saved but the rock went all the way to the bottom. It took two men with a stretcher to carry it back. It was too heavy for me to lift. We have it outside my house in Gombe,” Jane concluded, describing her trophy triumphantly. “We make people guess how heavy it is.”