Beyond Hope & Despair: Realizing the true potential of living and working in transformative times

The prevalence and acceleration of destructive, difficult, and painful situations in the world evokes a wide range of responses. Among them are hope and despair. Hope that if we work hard with a lot of heart, we can make a difference. Despair — sometimes crushing, sometimes quietly nagging — that it’s too late and nothing we do is going to make a difference. Both are understandable, yet both are problematic. Whether you find yourself oscillating between the two, or primarily seated in one or the other, both cloud understanding the true potential of the moment.

Let’s start with despair. Many people are experiencing a sense of despair sourced from any number of truly troubling predicaments — situations in which there are no clear or easy ways out and in which there are no guarantees, or even possibilities, for what we might consider a positive outcome. These predicaments are far more than a collection of exceedingly complex problems. No amount of ingenuity, technology, political will, complexity science, or even consciousness can “save us” from climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, growing inequalities, economic instability, ideological extremism, and/or mental health crises. These deeply entangled and entrenched predicaments present a significant risk to life as we know it, but all the solutioneering we can imagine won’t solve them or make them go away. Indeed, much has been and will continue to be lost. And we know all of this. Despair leaves us crippled and unable to be present and attend to the processes of grieving and mourning, which are in fact the sacred and necessary work.

Hope often serves as a balancing refrain or an antidote to despair — hope that we can turn things around or at least soften the fall. Hope that if we could just ___________ (fill in the blank with ALL the things on your list — no really, all the things), then __________ (fill in with your version of your desired outcome). We hope that the right policy, politicians, programs, personal action, ideology, or even level of consciousness will fix it, making all the difference or at least making a difference. We believe that even if it’s not all better, at least something will be better. And if not better, then maybe it can be less terrible that it would have been otherwise. We sincerely hope that somehow, someway, if we all try hard enough, everything will be OK (if you don’t care for OK, then fill in the blank with healthy and thriving, in right relationship, less fucked up, etc.). The real issue is how inadequate all our “solutions” are in the face of such overwhelming circumstances, so we busy ourselves with work that might do some good, or at least feels good, to distract us from the discomfort of current realities. Ironically, hope often leads to despair when things don’t go our way. Moreover our hope-sourced activities too often perpetuate the very issues, systems, and processes that we are desperately seeking to address.

So, if despair leaves us inept and hope clouds our vision and/or leads to despair, where does that leave us? What are the alternatives?

Instead of hope and despair, there is a deeper, richer, more humble space that we can step into: the space of engaged surrender. When we inhabit a state of engaged surrender, we free up energy otherwise tied up in trying to control that which we cannot. Despair is replaced with being present, unsure, blown open and vulnerable, and able to embrace the pain and grief of loss and not-knowing. We can surrender to the mystery and uncertainty of it all. And we can be in service to that — to the mystery, the grief, the not-knowing.

To realize the full potential of living and working in the world today, we must have clear vision. Just as looking through glasses caked in mud makes seeing nearly impossible, our attachments, fears, wishful thinking, identities, self-importance, and narratives — all our despairs and hopes — keep us from sensing the emergent potential in this moment. Potential lives in the subtle tissues — the interstitial, liminal spaces in-between — and it cannot be seen when our understanding is clouded by the compelling forces of lower energies.

It takes courage to remove the haze so that we might see more clearly. There are many hard and very painful truths. So many. It is tempting to look away, or get lost in sadness, or cling to false narratives, or busy ourselves with hopeful activities, or all of these in turn. But in doing so, we lose the preciousness and the potential that is inherent at this moment — the potential to honor that which is being lost, just as we would a loved one who is passing on, and to embody the nourishment that is made available in the decomposition.

Instead of trying to find answers, and now is a time to be very suspicious of anyone who claims to have answers, perhaps we can find purchase in exploring some big questions:

• What is the work that’s worth doing right now?
• What are the false paths that against my/our best intentions are only perpetuating, and even enabling, harm?
• What needs to be given an honorable death so that I/we might be open to new possibilities?
• How might we develop our capacities for navigating difficult and dark times?
• What other ways of knowing and being might be worth investing in?
• What are the seeds for future worlding efforts that are worth collecting, preserving, and propagating?

When we replace hope and despair with clearly seeing reality, engaged surrender, and sensing into the emergent potential of this time, we open new pathways for understanding and being that are not available otherwise. We open ourselves to new potentials for living and working in a fractured and deeply damaged world. Seeing clearly, being fully present, mourning the losses and holding uncertainty are, in and of themselves, deeply valuable contributions. It’s not about giving up — quite the contrary. It’s about dedicating our whole selves to that which really matters and releasing the expectation of a specified return. It is in the dedication of our merit, the ongoing acts, both tiny and grand, where significance resides.

Though demanding, it is liberating and meaning-rich work that enables increasing levels of lucidity and response-ability as we navigate these uncharted territories together.

In May 2025 the Institute for the Built Environment is launching Beyond Studio. The first publicly available course is titled Beyond Hope and Despair: Discovering the potential of living (and working) in transformative times. You can learn more about Beyond Studio here: https://ibe.colostate.edu/beyond-studio/