It sounds contradictory- hope for a better future can be detrimental to the cause. An interesting essay in the journal The Ecologist by two environmental researchers posed the idea that hope for a better future may be the wrong reason to promote sustainable living. Rather, they propose, people should live sustainably simply because it is the right thing to do.


Much of the research on the environment is dire, they say, which can reduce people's commitment to living green. What's the point? people might think. "Instead of hope, we need to provide young people with reasons to live sustainably that are rational and effective," the authors say. "We need to lift up examples of sustainable living motivated by virtue more than by a dubious belief that such actions will avert environmental disaster."


Of course, I immediately thought of eating disorders treatment. I don't think that we should totally abandon hope, not by a long shot. But I don't think hope is enough.

So much of what I was told during treatment was contradictory. The chances that I would relapse were high, but I had to stay hopeful that I would make it. I focused on "issues" in therapy even as what remained of my health went down the toilet. Literally. It's hard to stay hopeful when you can practically feel yourself dying a little more each day.

What I really needed was a specific plan for recovery, which I finally got thanks to a helpful therapist and dietitian who could see through the ED bullshit. That plan didn't rely on hope. It relied on three meals and two snacks every day. It relied on love. It relied on science.

And it was this plan that finally gave me hope. I'm not always good at feeling it, to be sure. I am afraid of hope, having seen too many predictions not come true. But there is always that possibility, born of a plan.