Hope for a New Year…

By Darcie Folsom, Senior Trainer

It’s that time of year again, a moment where many of us are frantically deciding on a New Year’s resolution that we can stick to – one that’s realistic, actionable, and won’t go by the wayside before January 21^st. It can be really hard to start new routines but we all have one thing in common when it comes to the start of a new year. We all have hope: hope we’re going to lose that extra ten pounds; hope that we’re going to make lifestyle changes; hope that THIS is going to be the year that those new habits stick.

Hope arises in situations where we understand that we are limited in what we can do. If we weren’t limited, we wouldn’t have to hope – we would just plan or act in order to achieve whatever it is we wanted to do (McGeer, 2004).

Truth is, hope is an essential ingredient to life, yet we really only tend to give it the focus it deserves around January 1^st. What if this year we made a resolution to tap into our hope more often? What if we added ‘reflect on hope’ as part of our To Do lists and brought up hope in conversation with our colleagues, friends, and families? What if we really took time to think about what was possible with regards to the big things in our life, including violence prevention?

A couple of months ago, in preparation for a Green Dot TA Webinar, I posted a status asking my Facebook friends “What does ‘hope’ mean to you?” and I received some really amazing responses. The take-away for me was that we all have different views on hope and, by sharing those with each other, we realize there’s common connection and it matters that others are hopeful too. As Victoria McGeer said, “We cannot hope well without taking a hopeful interest in the hopes of others and vice versa”.

My New Year’s resolution this year is simple. I’m making a commitment to connect more often with my own hope and encouraging others to do the same.

What are you hopeful for this year? What about in regard to the possibilities of violence prevention? Let us know in the comments section what you’re committed to doing in the next 365 days. Will you add “hope” as a topic in your meeting agendas? Could you bring up the topic over drinks with friends? Are you willing to share your favorite ‘hope’ quote on social media? Here, I’ll get us started…

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness” ~Desmond Tutu

Also, in case you were thinking of counting, I’ll save you the time and let you know the word ‘hope’ appears an astounding 24 times in this blog post. I think we can all commit to saying the word out loud at least once today.

McGeer, V. (2004). The Art of Good Hope.

Darcie Folsom

Darcie discovered her passion for violence prevention as an undergraduate student at the University of Rhode Island, and has been in the field ever since. She worked as the Community Educ. & Involvement Coord. and Advocate at Safe Futures in New London, CT and sat on multiple statewide task forces with the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Most recently, Darcie was the Dir. of Sexual Violence Prevention and Advocacy at Connecticut College, which was one of the first colleges to implement Green Dot. She also coordinated the DOJ Campus Grant there and was an Adjunct Instructor.