Optimism: The Aldi off-brand version of hope.

It’s understandable that words like hopeful and optimistic are often used interchangeably but they are very different things. In many ways, optimism is just the Aldi off-brand version of hope…and, as is often the case with off-brand options, it’s never quite as good as the original. Optimism (and it’s opposite) pessimism just predictions based on our current circumstances. If things are trending up we feel optimistic and if things are trending down we feel pessimistic. To live life this way is to live like a leaf upon water, pushed this way and that, in any direction the tide or wind may move.

But hope is different. Hope is what leads us to feel positively about the future despite our circumstances. Hope anchors us to something solid so that we are not merely pushed and pulled by our surroundings but can remain firm even in the worst circumstances.

Viktor Frankl wrote the book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ after surviving the Nazi concentration camps of WW2 and he made this observation regarding the need for hope:

“The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay”

A loss of hope in the future is nothing short of fatal which is why the Bible describes hope in God as ‘an anchor for the soul’. Hope in God means we have a belief that God will work in the future for our good even if our circumstances don’t seem to imply that anything good is going to happen. Being anchored by hope in God is the one thing that can prevent us from merely being pushed and pulled by the random forces of fortune and misfortune, and give us a certain belief that there is light on the other side of our present darkness.