In futures work, hope is often misunderstood. (It’s certainly understood in other contexts, too, but I’ll try to stay on topic!)
In futures, it’s sometimes treated as optimism, which is a belief that things will turn out well if we just think positively enough. That kind of hope doesn’t survive contact with complexity for very long.
The kind of hope I’m interested in is different. It’s closer to agency than to positivity.
It’s the belief that even under uncertainty, people can still act meaningfully. That choices matter. That the future isn’t fully settled. And when I talk about “acting meaningfully”, I am mindful that we don’t all have the ability or possibility to act in the same way: action in this context can be as small or as large as you want to imagine it.
This kind of hope can coexist with fear, grief, and anger. It doesn’t require pretending things are fine. It just refuses the idea that nothing can be done.
In facilitated futures work, this kind of hope often emerges indirectly. Not through inspirational speeches, but through careful attention to participation, imagination, and shared sense-making.
When people leave a futures session feeling more capable of thinking and acting, even without clear answers, that’s a form of hope.