Here's the Truth About Hope

Lately, I’ve been wondering a lot about hope.

It’s something that’s been on my mind for a long time now, actually. Because for me, in the kind of work that I do, hope is as necessary as oxygen, as rare as a meteor, and about as easy to work through as quantum physics.

For the last several years, I’ve spent my days working to prevent and intervene with human trafficking on a global scale. And to be honest, it’s not the kind of vocation that naturally lends itself to hopefulness.

Modern-day slavery is worse today than it ever was during the transatlantic slave trade over two hundred years ago. Some say as many as 36 million people are forced to work against their will, from factories to brothels, restaurants to strip clubs, in practically every country across the world—even in my own backyard in Canada.

In dark times like these, hope is a tough pill to swallow. And, especially when it comes to something as egregious as human trafficking, I struggle to tell myself the usual platitudes of “stay positive” … “stick with it” … “it will get better.” I’m getting a little tired of hearing the trite cliché “but there is hope!” at the end of a lecture about the millions of children forced to work against their will around the world, or the billions of dollars that slavery generates every year.

Where is hope in something so evil and overwhelming? How do I hope things will get better when things only seems to get worse?

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This is an excerpt from an article that originally appeared on The Gift of Writing. Read the full article here>>