Andy: *Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.*
Red: *Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.*
The Shawshank Redemption
Both are right; hope can be dangerous, but without it, nothing worth building ever happens.
Why the Future Feels Dark
When I talk to young people, or scroll through online posts, I hear things like:
- “I’ll never be able to retire.”
- “You will own nothing and be happy.”
These anxieties aren’t groundless. Climate change, wars, extremism, inequality, unstable jobs, and housing markets, the list is long. The rise of the “doomer” meme around 2018 captured this perfectly: a young man who has given up on life. But giving up is the one guaranteed way to make the future worse.
The Rosling Lens
Hans Rosling in the book Factfulness once compared humanity to a premature baby in an incubator. The baby is still fragile, but healthier than it was a week ago. That’s our world: far from perfect, but improving over time if we nurture it. And the data proves it:
- Child mortality has fallen from 30% a century ago to under 4%.
- Global life expectancy has risen from 46 to 73 years.
- Literacy rates have increased from 33% to 87%.
- Extreme poverty has dropped from 43% to under 10% in the last 35 years.
Progress doesn’t erase today’s challenges, but it shows that despair is the wrong story.
Why Stories Matter
Think about the stories you grew up with: Naruto, Dragon Ball, Marvel, and DC. At their core, they’re about a hero who refuses to quit in the face of hardship. These are our modern myths. They teach us that persistence matters more than certainty and that hope is a weapon. In the same way, science and technology are living proof of hope turned into reality. From the Wright brothers’ first flight to humans walking on the moon took less than 70 years, from the first computer program to the internet: just 35 years. Every breakthrough begins with someone who believes it is possible.
The Lesson of Past Generations
It’s easy to think Baby Boomers had it easier, with cheap houses and stable jobs. But they also lived under the shadow of nuclear war, with worse healthcare, fewer rights, and a lower quality of life. They kept moving forward, and so must we. Every generation’s progress is built on two things: hope and perseverance.
A Self-Fulfilling Future
The future isn’t fixed, it’s created. If we believe it will get worse, we’ll stop trying, and it will. However, if we believe it can be improved, we’ll push harder, address problems, and make it so. Hope is not naïve. It is the most practical survival tool we have. So the question is not “Will the future be better?” but “Will we stay hopeful enough to build it?”