The following is a transcript of this video.
We are teleological beings. Ends and goals move us through life, shape our character, and when all is said and done, the ends we accomplish determine the mark we make on the world. “We cannot think, feel, will, or act without the perception of a goal.” (Alfred Adler, Individual Psychology) But the importance of setting goals is so ubiquitous in the self-development community that most of us dismiss it as cliché and live without well-defined goals to guide us through life. In this video we explore an overlooked, but incredibly important reason for setting goals – goals are the fuel that ignite the faculty of hope and hope is one of the most important factors in the quality of life.
“Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante’s hell is the inscription: “Leave behind all hope, you who enter here.””
Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope
Fyodor Dostoevsky, the renowned Russian novelist, is widely regarded as one of history’s greatest psychologists and his profound insights into the nature of man were significantly shaped by his personal experiences, particularly his four-year sentence in a Siberian prison camp. During his confinement Dostoevsky was struck by the fact that some prisoners were able to endure the hellish conditions of prison life with relative equanimity. One group of prisoners, in particular, piqued his curiosity – these were inmates whose punishment consisted of being chained to a wall, unable to move more than seven feet, for upwards of six years at a time. Dostoevsky was astonished by the fact that many of these inmates endured this punishment stoically. What could account for this remarkable resilience? Dostoevsky believed these men were saved by the incredible power of hope. These men held in their mind the vision of a better future; they longed for release from the chain and a return to the general prison population, and this hope kept their psyches from breaking down under the weight of a tortuous punishment, or as Dostoevsky wrote in The House of the Dead:
“. . .everyone of them is intensely anxious for the end of his sentence [chained to the wall]. Why, one wonders? I will tell you why: he will get out of the stifling dark room with its low vaulted roof of brick, and will walk in the prison yard. . . And that is all. He will never be allowed out of the prison. He knows those who have been in chains are always kept in prison and fettered to the day of their death. He knows that and yet he is desperately eager for the end of his time on the chain. But for that longing how could he remain five or six years on the chain without dying or going out of his mind? Some of them would not endure at all”.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead
If hope can sustain a man chained to a wall for years at a time, hope is a powerful faculty, and we would be wise to harness its power. For without hope, without the belief in a better future, we risk succumbing to a downward spiral of depression, despair, and apathy. Without hope our motivation to actively engage in life diminishes and a dangerous passivity sets in. Dostoevsky claimed that an individual who has nothing to hope for becomes “a monster in his misery”. In extreme cases hopelessness paves the way for suicidal ideation. The psychiatrist and founder of cognitive behavioural therapy, Aaron Beck suggested that “suicide is not due to pain itself so much as to hopelessness—a subjective belief that the pain will never end and one’s situation will never improve.” (Jason Manning, Suicide – The Social Causes of Destruction) While the psychologist C.R. Snyder in his book The Psychology of Hope notes that:
“Hopelessness appears to be more important than depression in predicting suicidal tendencies in children.”
C.R. Snyder, The Psychology of Hope
If we feel hopeless about the future, how can we ignite the lifesaving faculty of hope? Snyder, who wrote one of the most extensive books on the psychology of hope, suggests that three ingredients are necessary.
