In this episode of Across the Border, we explore the transformative power of hope and optimism in driving societal change. Through personal reflections and historical parallels, the episode emphasizes the importance of collective action, challenging pessimism, and cultivating a mindset that fosters resilience and progress in the face of global challenges.
In the first episode of Across the Border, we explore the transformative power of hope and optimism in shaping a better world. The episode begins with a reflection on the historical significance of optimism, drawing from Kevin Kelly's TED Talk, "The Future Will Be Shaped by Optimists" (0:01). Bibi then delves into the struggles of hopelessness, particularly among youth, sharing her personal challenges as an undocumented teenager and the impact of societal issues on her sense of belonging (1:49).
The episode shifts to the science behind hope and optimism, with insights into how cultivating hope skills positively impacts various aspects of life, including healthcare, education, and overall well-being (8:35).
Bibi emphasizes the importance of setting achievable goals and maintaining a hopeful outlook to create a better future. The discussion introduces the concept of different types of optimism, focusing on changeable optimists who believe in the potential to shape the future through action (12:42).
The dangers of complacency and unchangeable optimism are discussed, noting how these attitudes can lead to passivity and a failure to address pressing global issues. Bibi underscores the necessity of collective action, citing successful movements like the Nirbhaya movement in India, the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil, and the fight for police reform in the U.S. as examples of how changeable optimism can drive meaningful progress (17:51).
The episode also touches on the role of media in shaping perceptions of reality, highlighting how the prevalence of negative news can foster a cynical outlook (25:43). Listeners are encouraged to recognize the importance of hope and optimism in driving change, emphasizing that these skills can be cultivated and strengthened through practice (26:54).
The episode concludes with reflections on the lessons learned from Bibi’s personal journey, the importance of community, and the interconnectedness of our world. She leaves listeners with the question of "What is one step that you can take to make your ideal world a reality?" (29:49). This episode challenges listeners to move beyond symbolic gestures, embrace collective action, and become agents of hope in their communities and beyond.
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[0:01] In the past, every great and difficult thing that has been accomplished, every breakthrough, has in fact required a very strong sense of optimism that it was possible. Introducing the topic of today's episode, that was Kevin Kelly with The Future Will Be Shaped by Optimists on TED Talk.
[0:17] We live in a world with seven billion people, but yet our ability to understand other humans is often limited to those around us, those who look like us and those who lived similar lives to us. But what if we were to learn history that is not taught in schools and explore different cultures in a way that we can connect to, even if we don't really twit at all? What if we were to start to ask better questions about the people that we walk this world with with.
[1:03] When I was coming up with ideas for the very first podcast episode, I found myself having that problem that we all have from time and time again. There are so many things to cover, but I kept asking myself, what is that one thing that I should be covering first? And in order to unblock, I started paying closer attention to what was happening around me, and I even looked inward to what I was personally feeling. So I want to preface this episode by saying that it's unique from what I originally had planned, but I felt that this was a conversation that we couldn't ignore any longer and needed to be having right now. I would love to hear your thoughts after finishing today's episode and you can join the conversation on Instagram at acrosstheborderpodcast or on our sub stack at acrosstheborder.substack.com. All right, I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to take a second to really think about it before answering it to yourself.
[1:49] During the past 12 months, did you ever feel so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that you stopped doing some usual activities in your life? No matter No matter where I turn, the conversation is mostly the same. There is no shortage of We're screwed. Where the world is going is scary. We will be doomed. So orienting. Holy shit. Stop the world. I would like to get off feeling. And when the topic of children comes up, there is a general sentiment from millennials and Gen Zers alike who are cautious about having children as they do not believe that there is a future for them. And whenever someone asks my husband and me if we want to have children, honestly, that would be my go-to answer too. So as you can imagine, when I found out I was going to be an aunt, I became extremely anxious. I kept thinking, if the world is this messed up today, how is it going to be for her when she's older?
[2:39] Now, think about your answer to the question I asked you. What if I told you that 44% of surveyed high school students in America reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks in a row? And this is a 55% increase from 2011. These stats make me really sad. It shows us that our youth are struggling to see a future that they can actually be excited about.
[3:00] In 2012, I was a part of the 30% of high school students who reported these feelings. I was an undocumented teenager watching my friends and classmates make plans for college and their careers. I was excited for them, but at the end of the day, I would go home and compare myself and write in my journal about my personal reality. I was working at a local hardware store while I was grateful for the job and I genuinely enjoyed doing it. My dream was to become a defense attorney or a muckraker, and I couldn't help but feel that the future that I envisioned for myself was completely out of my reach. So one evening, while I was closing the store, I confided in my coworker, a man in his 60s, a former Air Force veteran, who we called Santa Claus because he had this long, white, fluffy beard. But for sake of this brief story, we're going to call him Santa. He noticed that I wasn't being myself and that I looked defeated. So he asked, what's going through your head, BB? You look pensive. And at this point, I had been thinking about this for months, but I was finally there, face to face with the reality that I was refusing using to acknowledge. So it became one of those moments when someone asks you if you're okay and then suddenly all of the weight of the world that you've been feeling for such a long time just kind of falls on you and you can't hold back the tears any longer.
[4:11] So when he asked, I started to cry when I told him. I feel like I don't belong. My mom works so hard for me to have a future, but what future do I really have? I can't pursue the career I've always dreamed of. I can't go back home because I don't know what future I'll have there either. And if I go, I'll never be able to come back to the U.S. I can't vote. I can't drive. Trayvon Martin was just unjustly murdered. And I can't even go to a protest without risking deportation. I can't get a job unless it's under the table. All I can do is pay taxes, which is contributing to killing people in Afghanistan.
[4:43] He went quiet for a little while. Then he looked at me and softly said, You have a bright future ahead. Don't let what is right now limit you from what could be. While I felt a hug and a sense of comfort in his statement, I thought to myself, he's a white American man, he doesn't know what it's like being undocumented, and doesn't truly understand the restrictions of my future. But those words still stuck with me, especially listening to my own laundry list of things I couldn't do. A few days later, he handed me a book called The People's History of the United States. He told me to read it and find the hope within it. History has been terrible, but the future is great, he said. The People's History of the United States ended up living under a pile of clothes in my closet for months until I finally decided to pick it up and read it. At first, I couldn't see the hope in the brutality of history. In fact, it made me even more sad to know that humans can be such cruel beings. In a separate reading, I learned that Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher, basically described life as one giant veil of tears, and I agreed with him, and found Santa's statements to be awfully naive and optimistic.
[5:45] I went back to work and I told Santa that I didn't understand. Where is the hope in history? But Santa explained that the future lies in people who dare to dream and find hope in hopeless situations. He told me to go back and re-read the book, but with this perspective in mind. And once I did, I realized that he was right. Everything changed in the last 200 years because more people decided to dream up a new reality than the one that they were living in. In just a fraction of the time that humans have clocked in on this planet, billions of us are suddenly wealthier than we've ever been. Well-nourished, clean, safe, smart, and healthy. He also mentioned that whether we like it or not, we are all shaping the present and the future, but how we choose to do so is up to us. Our everyday actions ultimately influence our society. He was also right that our behaviors, no matter how big or small, impact our peers. They inform our politicians, corporate CEOs, global strategists, and political advisors of what we are willing to accept. And it is even more true now in the a digital economy where our everyday actions are measured by metrics and our personal data can be sold to just about anyone who is willing to pay for it. So when we talk about hope, it often comes across as a naive thought, not rooted in any reality, often associated with blind optimism and willful ignorance that our problems would just go away if we don't think about them or address them.
[7:04] I mean, can you imagine if we called Harriet Tubman, who was born and raised into slavery, slavery naive for dreaming up a life beyond the brutal reality that she was living in, it would sound absolutely ridiculous, wouldn't it?
[7:17] Think about it. Slavery and the systems that allowed it to happen and continue to happen had been in place for over 200 years before she escaped.
[7:25] Tubman was born in 1822, and by then, slavery had been fully entrenched in American society since the early 1600s. This was unfortunately the only reality she knew until she changed it. It is because of people like Harriet Tubman and others who led the Underground Railroad that we know that long-standing systemic systems of oppression can be dismantled. It is because of the South African, Namibian, Zimbabwean people, and Black Americans that we know Palestine can be freed from its apartheid. It's not a matter of if it will happen, but when.
[7:57] Or think about Nelson Mandela, who ended up spending 27 years of his life in prison for his fight against apartheid that lasted 46 years in South Africa. When he was finally released, he continued to work, ultimately helping to end the apartheid and becoming South Africa's very first black president. It was his unwavering hope and dedication that changed the course of history for his country and inspired millions around the world. But hope is not naive or blind optimism at all. Hope is a powerful and practical tool that can drive positive change. It is such a powerful concept that Barack Obama used it in his 2004 DNC speech and later went on to make it his winning campaign message in 2008. Hope. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty.
[8:40] The audacity of hope. In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead. head. But this is not just a philosophical idea. There's a real science behind the power of hope and optimism. For more than 30 years, scientists across the globe have been researching hope and its building blocks. They found that hope is not the belief that everything will be fine, but a cognitive skill that helps people reject the status quo and visualize a better way. It's a muscle that can be measured and taught. It's not some fluffy concept. It's strategic planning with a purpose, and it is also the most powerful force in the world. And at its core, imagination is the instrument of hope. Decades of research have shown that people with strong hope skills perform better in various aspects of life. They are able to manage illness and pain more effectively and score higher in assessments of happiness and purpose. Chen Hellman, the founding director of the Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma, has an amazing TED Talk about this, and the way he describes hope is that, It's the belief that your future will be better than today and that you have the power to make it so.
[9:54] That is what distinguishes hope from everything else. Hope acts as a buffer against stress and adversity. It helps people stay resilient in the face of challenges, giving them the strength to keep going even when things get tough. It's a driving force that pushes us to take action, to strive for better, and to believe in our ability to make a difference. Research from the University of Oklahoma has shown that hope can be cultivated and straightened through specific practices. These include setting clear, achievable goals, developing pathways to reach those goals, and fostering the willpower to pursue them. This approach, often referred to as hope theory, has been applied in various settings, from schools and workplaces to healthcare and community programs, and has shown incredible results. In schools, programs that teach hope theory have been shown to improve students' academic performance, increase their engagement and motivation, and reduce dropout rates. In healthcare settings, hope-based interventions have helped patients manage chronic pain, cope with serious illnesses, and improve their overall well-being. And in the workplace, place, fostering a culture of hope has been linked to higher employee satisfaction, increased productivity, and lower turnover rates.
[10:58] And even still, I could sit here for two hours and give you all of the studies and the data to show you why hope is important, and people will always have a list of reasons to be pessimistic. And trust me, I get it. I've been there, and I've done that. As you heard from the conversation that I shared with you that I had with Santa, that's exactly what I did. When I started making this episode, one of my biggest fears was the perception of toxic positivity, because this is not what this is about at all. This is also not about whether pessimism is accurate or inaccurate, but understanding if it's useful. Some people might defend doomsday scenarios or fear-based politics as like a bucket of cold water that is desperately needed to be thrown over our heads for us to finally wake up and take action. But honestly, this only drives people into isolationism, sometimes depression, or even hopelessness.
[11:47] There is no accountability for making people feel this way, because it might be defended as a crucial catalyst that gets us to act on change. This practice is not only wrong, but it's ruining our society, and it's dividing us. Scaring people into action just doesn't work. It makes them feel like life is outside of their control. We start to police each other's actions, instead of thinking of how we could be encouraging our peers to join the movement for change. And I know, I get it, some things seem very black and white, and it's like, why aren't you acting on this? And I've definitely felt that. But I've realized that in order for us to make progress, we need hope to guide our actions. When we look at global issues, we have big fights ahead, and those include climate change, social injustice, wealth inequality, and genocide. But to actually be able to make any progress, we need people who can recognize that the world will only improve if we fight for it.
[12:36] But to understand the type of thinking that drives positive change, we're actually going to use Hannah Ritchie's framework and evaluate it against history. If you're not familiar with Hannah Ritchie, she is the lead researcher for Our World in Data. Her work is focused on climate change. She was recently interviewed by the Guardian's Killian Fox, and the interview is absolutely incredible and I highly recommend it. It is titled, Doomsday Predictions Are a Dream for Climate Deniers. I mean, what a title. It is such a great way to show that the way that climate change is sometimes presented, which is often through catastrophic predictions, may actually be counterproductive. Ritchie's framework that she highlights in her Vox article includes two axes. On one axis, we have level of optimism, which is spanning from optimistic to pessimistic. People who think that the future will be much better are on one end, and those who think it will be much worse are on the other. On the other axis, we have changeability. This reflects how much people think that the future can actually be shaped by the decisions we make today. A. People who think that the world is changeable believe that they have the agency to mold it, while those who think it's unchangeable believe we're on a predetermined path and that trying to shape the future is just useless.
[13:44] Let's dive deep into each category to understand it a little bit further. So let's start off with the pessimists. Those who think that the future is not changeable, they are the true doomers. They believe that we're screwed and there's nothing we can do about it. For all of the years that I was undocumented, I used to be one. I used to believe that the world was completely outside of my hands and outside of my control, Hence my list of I can'ts. Unchangeable pessimists have given up on pushing for change and experienced high levels of anxiety and despotency. According to the Vox article, it's important to realize that not all levels of anxiety are equal or at least equally arresting. Research shows that some anxiety can be a strong predictor for positive constructive action. It can be a signal that we're unhappy with how things are and give us the initial trigger to act. But it's useless unless combined with hope that things can actually get better. I heard many of you have been thinking a lot about the Roman Empire recently, so this one's for you. If we look at history, the fall of the Roman Empire is a great example, particularly among certain Roman citizens and intellectuals who truly believed that the empire's downfall was inevitable and that there was nothing that they could have done to reverse its course. Some Roman historians and philosophers documented the decline with a deep sense of despair. They really focused on the moral decay, the corruption, and the external threats that seemed absolutely insurmountable. And this mindset reflects a belief that the empire was doomed and that any efforts to save it, or change it, was absolutely useless. While not everyone in Rome held these views, those who did are great examples of unchangeable pessimists. They were convinced that the future was beyond their control and that the collapse of the empire was inevitable.
[15:13] Does this sound familiar to you? I always love to look back and reread about the Roman Empire because the similarities between then and the current American society now are absolutely striking. I would love to do an entire episode just on this topic alone. And I just want to be clear, I am using the Roman Empire as an example only. I am not stating that I am for or against the Roman Empire by any means. But this kind of pessimism, while understandable given the circumstances, can lead to inaction or resignation instead of action to change or improve a situation. It lacks vision. Ritchie's article does a great job at outlining the mental health aspect to this too, calling what unchangeable pessimists feel as a paralyzing anxiety. Not only is it bad for our mental health, it keeps us from participating and seeing our role in society.
[16:01] Now, there is a second type of pessimism. Those who fall into the changeable pessimism category. These individuals are resigned to a doomed future but believe that rather than doing nothing, we must prepare for the inevitable. This group is just as anxious as the unchangeable pessimists. But instead of being completely dejected, they become self-serving and indignant, doing all that they can to protect themselves. Changeable pessimists often prefer extreme, divisive solutions that are focused on self-preservation. This mindset was evident in the rise of the protectionist policies and isolationism during the Trump administration in the United States. The America First approach prioritized domestic interests, leading to strict immigration controls, withdrawal from international agreements like the Paris Climate Accord, and a reduction in foreign aid. All while the U.S. military continued to serve as a tool for resource collection across the globe. These actions were driven by a belief in safeguarding national interests, but they also contributed to a decline in international cooperation, A cooperation that is so needed for addressing global challenges like climate change, public health, and economic stability. This inward-looking approach reflects the characteristics of changeable pessimists who focus on self-preservation at the expense of the broader collective solutions. Recently, within the Democratic Party, we are seeing a similar message. Why should we care about Palestine when we have our own issues here at home? I find this perspective fascinating because it completely ignores the intersectionality of it all and the importance of American civilians supporting a free Palestine and what that fight represents.
[17:30] Zionism, the main perpetrator of the Palestinian genocide, is also one of the biggest threats to American domestic politics. In the U.S., police departments, specifically in cities, are often trained in Israel, learning tactics used against Palestinians, Indians, tactics that are then employed here against peaceful protesters in black and brown communities. Zionist organizations have also worked to influence the content of educational curricula in the United States. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, also known as the AIPAC, is one of the most influential lobbying groups, heavily influencing who our governing bodies and representatives will be on both the Republican and Democrat side, often in ways that do not align with the interests of the people. So while we are busy passing pro-Israel policies and laws and continue to grant billions of dollars to the Israeli government, the interests of the people of the United States not only takes a backseat, but the legislations passed often restrict our own freedoms. So when we ask whether now, during this election, is the time to care about the Palestinian cause, the answer couldn't be more clear. It is absolutely the best time to pressure government officials and candidates for office to change their stance on the issue. Caring for the Palestinian cause is not just about Palestine. It's a domestic issue too, deeply intertwined with the very fabric of our own society and the struggles that we face here at home. It's about money and politics, foreign interference in our democratic process, and systemic discrimination. That is all to say that the struggles of the Palestinian people are not mutually exclusive from the struggles of the marginalized communities in America. But the way we've been talking about it recently definitely has been showing a level of changeable pessimism.
[18:58] And now we turn to the optimists. And when we talk about optimism, we often believe that it's a happy positive thing. But not all forms of optimism are actually good. Unchangeable optimists, according to Hannah Ritchie, are a dangerous group, and I couldn't agree more.
[19:12] These optimists believe that the world will just keep getting better, no matter what. They will look at the historical progress and assume it will just keep going on its own. People who fall into this category are often minimally engaged and passive participants.
[19:25] Unchangeable optimists think that a small donation here or there, or their vote, is enough to support a cause without actually getting involved. Now, don't get me wrong, donations and votes are important, but they can sometimes be an easy way to avoid deeper involvement.
[19:38] Unchangeable optimists might acknowledge the issues in our world, but believe that technology, politicians, corporations, or even other people will solve them, absolving themselves of the need to make personal changes or advocate for political action. This kind of complacency can get us into serious trouble. Today, we need to push in new directions. We've made huge strides in healthcare, energy, technology, and education over the past few centuries, but none of that was preordained. It required deliberate action from people who weren't satisfied with the status quo. Sticking with what got us here only got us here. we need new ways of thinking, innovation, and an expanded imagination. Yes, we've achieved amazing things, but now we face new challenges that demand action from us. Hannah Ritchie in her Vox article uses Alex Epstein, the author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, as an example of a classic unchangeable optimist in the climate change world. Epstein argues that fossil fuels have transformed billions of lives for the better, and that we should continue to exploit them. But this viewpoint overlooks the severe problems that fossil fuel causes, like climate change, and air pollution. Another example is from the tech industry, which I'm actually a part of. Giants like Google, Amazon, and Meta boast about the transformative benefits of technology and data collection, promoting the notion that tech will inevitably lead to a better world. But the reality tells us a very different story. Despite mounting evidence of privacy violations, data breaches, and the overwhelming concerns surrounding AI.
[20:59] These companies continuously downplay these issues. They operate under the dangerous assumption that the benefits will automatically outweigh any potential harm, and they fiercely resist significant regulatory changes. And when they're faced under pressure, they make only superficial adjustments, like updating their privacy policies without ever addressing the fundamental problems. Unchangeable optimists want to maintain a status quo that doesn't serve us anymore. Their complacency slows the action needed to change our trajectory towards a future that better serves us all. All self-identified optimists like myself and Hina Ritchie are always in danger of falling into this category. It's crucial to work to avoid falling into this trap. Sometimes it feels like this category has like a way of sucking you in, especially through the comforts of everyday life, but we have to stop ourselves from following into it. Now, this leads us to the change makers, the changeable optimists. These are the people who have strong hope skills. They hold on to hope and they turn it into action. And while it's easy to point to major figures like Harriet Tubman and Elsa Mandela, everyday people are capable of being changeable optimists and making meaningful change. There are movements with countless people whose names we may never know, but whose impact we all feel. In India, the Nurbaya movement arose after Brutal Gang Rape in Delhi in 2012. This incident sparked nationwide protests and a global outcry, leading to major reforms in the country's laws on sexual violence. The movement demonstrated the power of the collective action in driving legal and social change.
[22:19] In Brazil, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores em Teja, MST, or the Landless Workers Movement, has fought for agrarian reform and the redistribution of land to landless workers since the 1980s. Through occupations, protests, and negotiations, MST has secured land for thousands of families. Now it's celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2024. MST continues to push for land redistribution and social justice, but now it's expanding its focus to include agroecology, gender equality, and food sovereignty. The introduction of body cameras for police officers in the U.S. didn't happen overnight. It was the result of relentless advocacy by civil rights groups and activists demanding greater accountability and transparency in law enforcement. The tragic deaths of many people, including Michael Brown and George Floyd, sparked nationwide protests and movements like Black Lives Matter, leading to a widespread adoption of body cameras by police departments. Various states and cities have paused police reform laws, including ban on chokeholds, the establishment of independent oversight boards, and changes to use-of-force policies. During an interview with Ezra Klein, one of my favorite authors, Ta-Nehisi Coates, described feeling hopeful during the Black Lives Matter movement.
[23:25] As I was listening to this interview, what really resonated with me was the phone call that he talked about having with his father. His father grew up in poverty in Philadelphia, served in Vietnam, and was deeply involved in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. And he shared some powerful reflections on the evolution of the social movement. He compared the 1968 riots in Baltimore to the 2020 protests. And the key thing that he found to be different was the level of sophistication and the widespread resonance that we saw with the current movement. He expressed amazement at how the pain and suffering of Black communities are now recognized and understood by diverse groups across the world, something that was absolutely unimaginable when he was growing up. And this was clear as we watched white people and many other people across the world also marching on the streets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. We saw this in London. We saw this in Brazil. We saw this in France. Really, it was all over the world. And this level of global pressure is actually what helped some of the changes that we've seen as a result happen.
[24:29] This is not to say that police brutality has ended, because it absolutely has not, and we still have long ways to go, as we recently observed with Sonia Massey. But it is to say that progress is being made. People are changing. What started in 2012 as a movement by fast food workers in New York City demanding a $15 minimum wage and the right to unionize has grown into a national movement. Through strikes, protests, and advocacy, these workers have secured wage increases in several cities and states across the U.S. And I remember so many people used to make fun of this effort, but now it is highlighting the power of the collective action in achieving economic justice. The movement has even influenced policy changes, such as the executive order that was signed by President Biden to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour.
[25:15] And while all of these movements have made significant strides, changeable optimists always acknowledge that more can be done. They understand that progress requires continuous effort, and that the journey toward a better future is ongoing. According to Hannah Ritchie in her Vox article, changeable optimists don't shy away from criticism of the status quo. In fact, they're often as fierce as critics. She describes pessimists using criticism as a wall, while optimists use it as a guiding door. And what I found interesting is that she called pessimism a form of survival. And that's why it served humans so well. She informs that history has rewarded those who could detect threats early and fixate on them. And what was so interesting to me is that, yes, she is right. Pessimism is a way of survival. But I genuinely believe that so is optimism. The only difference here is that one is effective and the other is ineffective. And it shelters us, removing our ability to want more and to be better. Pessimism at its best really keeps us exactly where we are, and it doesn't give us the agency and determination to build something better. It's not good for the progress that we need to achieve.
[26:17] This is why we need optimistic changemakers, people with strong hope skills. Optimists take a long-term view of human progress. Many people forget just how bad the past was. A concept of changeable optimists that I personally find really interesting is the idea of utopias. One of my favorite books is called Utopia for Realists, which I believe should be considered mandatory reading everywhere, covers this really well. It paints a very good picture of just how bad human life has been and what we are capable of being. As soon as you open up the book, one of the first sentences you'll see is that 99% of humanity was poor, hungry, dirty, afraid, stupid, sick, and ugly. And the book does a really great job at showing the long-term progress that we've actually made, and that the idea of the impossible is actually not real. Where 84% of the world's population still lived in extreme poverty in 1820, by 1981, that percentage had dropped to 44%. And now, just a few decades later, it is under 10%. Fewer people are going hungry too. The number of people suffering from malnutrition has shrunk by more than a third since 1990. The share of the world population that survives on fewer than 2000 calories a day has dropped from 51% in 1965 to just 3% in 2005. More than 2.1 billion people finally have access to clean drinking water between 1990 and 2012. But most importantly, changeable optimists look to solve the root of the issues rather than the symptoms.
[27:36] Even if you accept that we've made enormous progress from the past, you might look at the scale of the threats we face in the future and lose hope that progress will continue. But in thinking about today's challenges, it's crucial to look at change over time, not just the snapshots in time. During any transition, changes can look small at first. It's the pace of change that's important.
[27:53] So when I look at the data of the high school students, I can't help but feel like we fail to give ourselves and our youth hope that there is a better future that we can actually work towards. We've essentially been telling them that we don't feel like that there is a future worth investing in. So therefore, we just don't invest in it at all. But this is really dangerous. This mindset that we've all been cultivating has been a poison to our society. It is killing our youth. It is making us all feel like there is nothing we can do when that couldn't be further from the truth. But the beauty of life is that we have the ability to change at any point, including our mindset and developing skills like hope skills. More than three quarters of Americans say that the United States is headed in the wrong direction.
[28:36] Recently, as Americans prepare for the upcoming presidential elections, I've noticed a shift from a complete lack of hope to placing all of our aspirations into a single political candidate. And this trend extends beyond just this election cycle. The underlying issue is our willingness to endure prolonged periods of fear for brief moments of hope. Instead of demonstrating to our governing bodies the changes that we desire and holding them accountable to implementing these changes, we tend to settle for symbolic gestures. And while symbolic changes are significant, they are not nearly as impactful as systemic reforms, and they often keep us anchored in the status quo, a place where true substantive change just doesn't happen. Also, we are constantly solving for symptoms rather than addressing the core issues. For example, we might focus on increasing police presence in communities rather than tackling the root cause of crime, such as poverty, lack of education, and economic inequality. And this approach provides a temporary fix, but fails to solve the underlying problems, perpetuating a cycle of short-term solutions and long-term suffering.
[29:38] We frequently feel that we need saving and that hope must be given to us. This perception turns hope into a carrot that can be dangled in exchange for our votes, for our donations, for our money, and our support. But hope should be an intrinsic part of our lives, something that we carry and cultivate within ourselves and within movements. It is through these collective efforts that we can enact meaningful and lasting change. Instead of relying on single individuals to bring about change, we must recognize the power of our collective actions. Movements and collective action have always been the driving forces behind significant changes. Whether it's the civil rights movement, labor movement, the fight for women's suffrage, or recent climate change activism, these movements have shown us that real change happens when people come together, and we cannot rely on a single person or a political party to bring about change. It's really us coming together that makes all of the difference. The problems that we face are global, and our solutions have to be too.
[30:34] And it doesn't help that our news cycle fuels a sense of hopelessness, focusing on negative stories and creating a biased perception of reality. Traditional news coverage frequently overlooks the elements of hope, agency, and dignity, and this negative bias can distort our view of the world and make us feel more helpless than we actually are. I mean, take a moment. Think about your daily news conception. How often do you read about positive developments compared to negative ones? The media's focus on the worst aspects of the world can make it seem like everything is falling apart, even when there are significant positive changes happening. As journalist David Bordenstein points out, traditional news coverage is missing half of the story, and this distorts our view of reality. And this practice within the media, while it's profitable for them, it impacts our society by the way that it shapes our thinking, making us more cynical and less likely to believe in the possibility of positive change. Change. But hope and changeable optimism doesn't just come as easy. It's not like we can just turn off our TVs and then suddenly we will have it. As we talked about, it's a skill that can be taught and learned, and it needs to be continuously practiced.
[31:43] Three years after I had my conversation with Santa, I felt incredibly hopeless and I made plans to end it all. I didn't understand how the world could be such a cruel place where people can be casted in society for no reason other than the color of their skin, religious beliefs, or in my case, for where I was born. But this feeling didn't change overnight for me. In fact, it only got worse before it got better. I kept thinking about my mom, who moved to the United States on her own with two small children while she herself was fighting death. Her doctor in Brazil told her that the only hope she had was to seek medical help in the United States, where research for lupus was far more advanced. The life that was painted for us in America was not at all the reality that we lived. We ended up homeless in a country in which we do not speak the language of.
[32:28] And had to start life from scratch without any support. All of this because my mom needed to survive to be able to give my brother and I a chance at a promising future. One we didn't have back home. But no matter what our circumstances were, my mom never stopped planning for the future, because she genuinely believed that we had one. When you're undocumented, you become an invisible member of society. You have to be cautious of your every move and avoid negative attention brought on to you for the fear of being deported. But it was my mom's resilience and hope that gave her the willpower to fight her condition, eventually win two separate fights against cancer, and fight to get us citizenship in the United States 15 years after we moved here. When I started studying history and looking for the hope within it, as Santa had suggested, I ended up learning some life skills along the way, and it helped me to see life in a new light. The first lesson is that humans are capable of so much more than we think we are. In fact, we have managed to continuously accomplish the impossible. The modern world was once someone's idea of utopia, an unattainable future. But yet, we are living it today. And that is not to say that utopia didn't have problems. It just means that the problems we have today are a result of solutions of the past. 2. Nothing extraordinary has been done alone. We need community, which includes putting our personal needs aside sometimes to tend to others.
[33:50] And I understand that the individualism in America can make us feel like community doesn't serve us but that is not true at all we can be individuals within a community the third lesson is that nothing happens in isolation we are all connected and it doesn't matter if you live in the United States in Italy in Brazil in the Philippines in Nigeria in Morocco or anywhere else in the world, The actions we take or don't take in our communities, they impact each other. Along this lesson, I have learned that political strategists almost never influence a single country's political scape. They are always looking at the world as a whole. Oftentimes, they're using single countries as pilots for strategies which later get scaled and then implemented elsewhere. This is to say, we shouldn't ignore problems when we see them. They only become bigger.
[34:42] Fourth, it can be challenging to keep your peace of mind when it feels like everywhere you turn, it sounds like doomsday is fastly approaching. When you turn on the news, it's always bad news, and this is significantly exacerbated by social media. Psychologically, bad news is attention grabbing, and the media feeding us only bad news is profitable because it keeps us engaged. But we have to remember that the information we receive is at most only half of the story. The things that require our immediate attention are oftentimes not new. 5. Human beings are capable of the best and the worst, but it is up to us to continuously inspire, believe, and encourage each other to be our best, including ourselves. This is where the true magic happens and where we really shine. It is our responsibility to try to be a Santa in someone else's life. Not the Christmas Santa, but like the Santa from my story, someone that can help others see that we cannot restrict ourselves based on what is right now. Someone to remind us that we are more than our current situation, someone to inspire hope within us. We all need to be agents of hope. As for the final lesson, my mom always had a saying growing up that goes, good things take time. And when you look at history, the same applies. Bad things happen much faster than good things. Good things take time. And as the famous Buddhist saying goes, thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of the candle would not be shortened.
[36:07] If you have made it this far, I want to thank you so much for listening to the very first episode of Across the Border. I want to leave you with one final question. What is one step that you can take to make your ideal world a reality? And remember, if you think there's nothing you can do, look at history, and find the hope within it.