Easy Optimism / Durable Hope

I got curious on the weekend. Through one of my news feeds, I learned of author and educator Sharon McMahon, a scheduled commencement speaker at Utah Valley University. She’s a former high school history teacher. I got curious because I learned that what was to be her commencement address had been cancelled — so, that made me want to read it.

I’m not diving into the safety concerns that were cited — I respect people making choices in complex times. I do want to dive into a few of her words. Dana and I read the full speech. And felt very moved by her words about telling the truth of the times.

“Graduates, I will not insult you
by pretending you are entering an easy world.
You are not.
You are graduating into a world that can feel unbearably loud
and strangely lonely at the same time;
a world where trust is thin,
cruelty is profitable,
corruption often looks untouchable
and a thousand voices are waiting to tell you that caring is pointless and naive.

But I want you to hear me clearly:
A hard time is not the same as a hopeless time.
A broken world is not the same thing as a finished one.
And a world you cannot fix alone is not the same thing as a world that does not need you.”

McMahon contexts the American Revolution from the ground up. “It wasn’t an inevitability,” as she says. “It was cold, hungry men wrapping rags on their feet because their shoes had fallen apart. It was illness. It was death.”

She goes on to further clarify her point. “You do not need easy optimism. What you need is something better: durable hope.”

I love the courage to speak to hard things. To muster authenticity. To articulate doubt, and hope. To invite shared thinking, and shared perception.

Durable indeed. That’s a pattern I wish to support.