Five Simple Tips for Regaining Hope

For people who care about democracy and freedom in the United States right now, it’s easy to feel despair. What’s hard is regaining hope.

Some Reasons for my Despair (skip to next section for tips)

For example, last week Congress approved a rescission package to claw back about $8 billion from programs formerly run by the recently dissolved U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and nearly $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which according to the Associated Press “represents the full amount it’s due to receive during the next two budget years.” The CPB helps fund NPR, PBS, and “more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations.“

These are funds Congress had approved in appropriations bills and President Biden had signed into law. Given the federal government had committed that funding, USAID, CPB, NPR, PBS, and member stations included that money in their budgets for this year and next. Now that the rescission package has passed Congress and President Trump signed into law last Friday, the federal government will rescind that money and use it for other things.

Per Wikipedia, “In contract law, rescission is an equitable remedy which allows a contractual party to cancel the contract. Parties may rescind if they are the victims of a vitiating factor, such as misrepresentation, mistake, duress, or undue influence.[1] Rescission is the unwinding of a transaction. This is done to bring the parties, as far as possible, back to the position in which they were before they entered into a contract (the status quo ante).” For this rescission package, the Trump administration made claims about waste and fraud but didn’t provide evidence. There is ample evidence, however, for the benefits these programs bring to the U.S.

For more than 30 years, I’ve lobbied Congress to fund USAID programs that were measurably helping other countries develop their economic and social well-being. In the past, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress recognized that USAID programs improved U.S. national security and deserved the funding they gave it. I was glad to contribute some of my time as a citizen lobbyist to tell my representatives in Congress how I wanted them to invest my taxes. I’m angry Congressional Republicans are surrendering their Constitution-assigned control over taxpayers’ money and oversight of the administration to avoid the president’s threatened retribution. Congress has the ability and duty to impeach and remove presidents and administration members who are abusing their power.

I often listened to NPR as I commuted and have watched the Friday PBS New Hour with my wife for more than 10 years. According to the Ad Fontes Media Bias chart, NPR and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the PBS News Hour are among the least politically biased and most factually accurate news sources available. In the last month or two, I’ve learned NPR is sometimes the only radio station in rural areas and consequently is a critical component of emergency warnings and responses to natural disasters.

The more I think about the damage this fraudulent rescission will do, the more angry, heartbroken, and afraid I become. It’s easier to not think about. But putting those feelings in a mental box and storing them in my mind’s equivalent of the dark corner of the garage is avoidance. The more I think about the damage done, the more I get angry, heartbroken, and afraid. It’s easier to not think about USAID.

But, storing those feelings in a mental box and putting them in a dark corner of my mind is avoidance. I recently read a quotation from Brene Brown that hits home for me, “avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.”

To help me and others, whether liberal or not, cope with despair and summon hope, I offer these psychology tips I’ve learned over the last 15 years.

Tip 1: Remember the Hula Hoop

In an addiction recovery meeting, I remember a guy telling a story about his sponsor telling him to go to a Toys-R-Us store and put a hula hoop around his waist. When he did, his sponsor told him to remember that “you have control over everything inside the hula hoop and no control over everything outside the hula hoop.”

That story has stuck with me for years and reminds me what I can–and can’t–effectively focus on. I remind myself I don’t control what others feel, think, or do. The closest I can come to controlling others is to try to influence them. For my mental health and theirs, I have to remind myself what others actually do is up to them.

At the same time, I remind myself I am never powerless. I can choose how I react to what happens to me and to others I care about. If I don’t like how I’m reacting, I can change how I’m reacting. I can change what I’m feeling, thinking, and doing to make things better for me. The only time I’m powerless is when I feel I’ve given all my power away, but even then, I can always choose to take my power back.

Tip 2: The Rock Tumbler of Life

Rock tumblers are used to polish rocks. They work by tumbling rocks against each other and a coarse grit of powder that sands them. After several days, the tumbler’s contents are dumped out and the rocks are put back in with a finer grit of powder. The process is repeated until the rocks are polished.

I try to view the challenges in my life as varying grits of powder. Their purpose is to give me opportunities to deal with each challenge in as healthy a way as I can and to learn what I can from my mistakes. Facing those challenges allows them to grind me into a better, more polished human being.

Tip 3: Remember to be Grateful

Whether my rock tumbler is gently sanding or harshly grinding me, Life becomes easier when I remember there are always some things to be grateful for. Sometimes I’m grateful just to be able to breath. As a scuba diver, it’s important for me to not taking breathing for granted. If I’m not paying enough attention to how much air is left in my scuba tank, I could run out of air when surrounded by water. It’s amazing how much just breathing helps when I’m stressed.

There are many, many things I’m grateful for, but in the midst of dark emotions, it’s easy to forget those things. Remembering them brings me back to the present and awareness that I always have choices to pick from, even if those choices are only whether to fight, flee, or freeze.

Tip 4: Get Help When Needed

As a man, my tendency is to try to solve my–and sometimes others’–problems by myself. That’s what my dad taught me, and my grandfather taught him. It’s also what I’ve learned from my culture. That’s a good lesson to change. The world has become far too complex for anyone to be able to do everything. Despite what I’ve learned from my culture and my forefathers, there is no shame in asking for help. Needing help is not a sign of being defective, it’s a sign of being human. Human beings thrive when they help each other, and wither when they ignore or hurt each other.

Tip 5: Constant and Never-Ending Self Examination

I sometimes say I’ve become a grateful recovering addict. My addiction was wrecking my life, and by doing so, it forced me to confront my self-deception and my avoidance of all which caused me to be uncomfortable. That all included thoughts, beliefs, actions, responsibilities, and people. To avoid cognitive dissonance, I told myself lies which seemed perfectly true at the time. Through recovery, I learned the backronym DENIAL which means Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying. To remind myself to question myself and others, each morning I read this statement, “a life of truth and honesty requires constant and never-ending self-examination.”

The psychology principal of intuition and reasoning relates to this. We intuit things based on our perception of stimuli and subconsciously generate stories to prove our ideas about something are justified. Since it’s human nature to jump to conclusions, what we intuit is sometimes/often wrong. I find it helpful to question myself and others to test my thoughts. As the saying goes, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.“

Summary

The tips above are simple, but not often easy. Even though, I’ve paid a lot for the tips above, but I’m glad to share them with you for free. I’ve found these tips often work together as a kind of team, each bringing me a little perspective and a little calm from which I can draw hope. If you’d like, please share this these with others and share your own tips.