Hope: A Commitment to Staying in Relationship

Hope is often understood as a wish for a specific future outcome, as in “I hope it won’t rain tomorrow during our hike.”
In this sense, hope and wish are similar; both express a passive stance in which the subject has little or no control over the desired results. This kind of hope may rest on the belief that some external power can influence or predict the future. In the weather example, such a power might be nature itself; in “I hope she remembers my birthday this year,” all agency is placed in the other person while the hoping person waits passively.

I want to suggest another understanding of Hope, seeing it as a more active stance: a commitment to staying in relationship.
Looking at hope through this lens allows for intentional participation without the illusion of controlling outcomes. It invites an attitude that rejoices in agency and derives both trust and contentment from well-intended and consistent efforts.
Let’s explore this perspective of hope by expanding on each related concept: commitment, relationship, control, and a few other associated ideas.

Commitment and Intention

A commitment is a promise—to oneself, and sometimes to others—regarding an intention to act in a certain way. A commitment is kept when one adheres to that intention and broken when one does not. The intention is frequently confused with a desired outcome, yet a commitment refers to the intention, not to the outcome.

Outcomes are easy to observe; intentions are not. Consider the statement “I am committed to be there at six.” What it really means is “I am committed to trying to be there at six.” That subtle distinction is the source of much misunderstanding and hurt. A person may hear a promise and expect an outcome, assuming the person who made the promise will deliver no matter what, without considering that unforeseen circumstances may arise. When the expected outcome does not occur, the listener may feel disappointed or even betrayed, based on their expectations, temperament and previous life experience. Few people are satisfied with, or even aware of the distinction between a failed sincere intention and an unfulfilled result.

Mutuality and Control

A relationship implies a mutual connection, even in situations like teacher–student, therapist–client, or parent–child, where power imbalance is inherent. Typically, we speak of relationships between people, but we can also form relationships with projects, careers, ideas, and spiritual pursuits. Whatever the object, relationship implies give and take: both sides contribute to and gain from the connection.

When the balance between giving and receiving becomes skewed, the relationship suffers, sometimes irrecoverably. This does not imply strict accounting. The exchange is not always in the same currency; one side might give time and effort and get back meaning or self-esteem. In the short-term perspective, giving and receiving often do not outweigh each other. This might raise various negative feelings that can lead to doubt in the relationship. The commitment enables a long-term view; it allows for considerations that can bridge the small doubts and create a more stable accounting.

Mutual connection means that both sides are contributing to the binding forces. When a leaf falls from a tree, at least one of them lets go. As long as both are holding to the other, the connection remains. This is commitment!

An idea or a book might give ongoing inspiration and meaning to countless people, yet, if there is no feedback mechanism and the idea is not evolving as a result of being applied through people and real life, it is at most a static, one-sided relationship.

Similar situations can happen between people. One person might be always giving and serving the other. There might be adoration flowing in one direction, based mainly on imagination that is untested against reality. Such associations might be stable and long-lasting, but lacking mutual exchange—they are not alive and evolving.

Unpredictability and lack of control frequently evoke anxiety and fear. When trust in oneself and in the other is deficient, the inability to remain with the unknown often fuels attempts to control situations and people.
When one side attempts to control the other or dictate the terms of engagement, they remove themselves and disconnect; in that moment, it is no longer a relationship of mutual exchange.

Not Knowing

To stay with the unknown is to make efforts and follow a chosen direction without assurances of outcome. Doing so requires trust, faith, and the capacity for self-reflection—qualities that develop only through extended practice.

Growing up—especially during adolescence—provides countless opportunities to practice being uncertain. Children naturally view parents as powerful and all-knowing, and it is the parent’s role to assure them of safety amid life’s unpredictability. Over time, the tasks of adulthood involve learning to assume responsibility for one’s own safety and aspirations.

This is a slow process that necessarily includes failures, disappointments, and renewed attempts. When successful, it leads to self-trust and a new level of comfort moving towards an unknown future that can unfold into endless possibilities.

How do you respond to the unknown? Where and how do you seek assurances? How do you move forward when there is no marked path?

Commitment as the Source of Courage

A commitment to stay in relationship includes some evaluation of cost and benefit. One values the engagement enough to bear the challenges, frustrations, and pains inherent in all relationships. Whether or not this decision is conscious, it becomes the foundation of the connection. It is not initial attraction that sustains a relationship through hardship, but commitment—formed through reflection and a more aware choice.
Taking full responsibility for one’s decisions and actions is based on the grown-up understanding that “the buck stops here!” There is no one to hint at the right answer or approve one’s choices.

This commitment is also a source of courage to face inevitable obstacles and difficulties. Relationships continually change: they deepen or fade; intimacy grows or distance widens. Projects become more engaging and involved or fall by the wayside. Relating and interacting create friction and heat. These transform both the participants, the nature of the connection and the ways it develops or decays.

The courage to confront impediments is based on a wider horizon vision. Seeing the relationship beyond the momentary challenges—sometimes from a lifetime perspective—and feeling gratitude for both gifts and struggles, deeply changes the relationship. When both short-term and long-term accounting are transcended, right action comes simply and naturally, out of deeper knowing and intuition.

Wu-Wei and Relationships

Wu-Wei is a Taoist concept often explained as “doing without doing.” It suggests attunement to forces and flows greater than oneself and yielding to them effortlessly. Wu-Wei includes directing oneself towards goals, following intentions while not resisting the currents and not knowing the outcomes.

Wu-Wei is sometimes mistaken for passivity or lack of will. In fact, it is an active, continuous awareness that can recognize the most efficient and harmonious action and guide towards it, while avoiding wasteful or forced effort. This ongoing attentiveness steps in at the precise instances of opening when change is possible. This way of following the requirements and possibilities of each moment equally applies to projects, conversations, and relationships.

A commitment to staying in relationship, as described above, is an example of following Wu-Wei. When we focus too intently on desired outcomes or on preconceived plans, we lose sensitivity to the moment-to-moment flow. We may miss openings—subtle opportunities, softening of hearts, or shifts in circumstance—that could lead to surprising turns and to deeper relationships.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.
~ From Tao Te Ching, #2 ~

Now, let’s bring this poetry and philosophy into our day-to-day life.

Make it Practical

Consider your relationships: friends, family, colleagues, mentors, clients, business associates… anyone else you come in contact with. Have you given up hope in any of these relationships? Did you let go of a project that once meant something to you, or abandoned an idea that at some point was inspiring?

Consider also your relationships with your art or profession, with your house or the objects in it, with your personal history and with ideas and beliefs that are dear to you. Have you made a commitment to any of these relationships?

Of these relationships, choose one or two that stand out. Recall the efforts and pain this relationship involves and notice the feelings that arise: anger, disappointment, sadness, self-pity, resentment.
These are surely not pleasant emotions. Stay with these for just another moment…Now, try to remember what drew you to this person (or project or study) in the first place. Recall some of the initial feelings associated with this relationship. Stay with these for another moment…
Try to hold both poles next to each other, the pain and the pleasure, the cost and the benefit. Are they balanced enough to make it worthwhile? If you are not sure, try to acknowledge not-knowing, note that discomfort and return to the question at a later time. If it is clearly not worth it, can you consider letting it go? Can you imagine your life without this relationship?
On the other hand, if the relationship is clearly of value to you, can you make a commitment based on this realization of significance and meaning?
Does this reflection change your perspective?

Staying

We explored a different understanding of hope as a commitment to staying in relationship. We discussed commitment, relationship and the perspectives of Wu-Wei and of Not-Knowing. To conclude, we want to take a fresh look also at Staying.

Changing the topic of a conversation is not-staying. Physically moving unexpectedly and unconsciously from a difficult situation is not-staying. Ignoring the implied values of a joint-venture is not-staying. Abruptly changing the time or energy invested in a project is not-staying.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is known for the saying “Panta Rhei,” meaning, everything flows. He also said “you cannot enter twice into the same river,” since the river is always changing. How can one stay in a flowing river, or in a relationship that transforms continuously?

You can try to hold on to a tree or a rock, but sooner or later you will get exhausted and drift with the current. You can try to dam or divert the river, but then it is clearly no longer the same river. And you can try to trust and let the river carry you, adjusting occasionally with swimming and rest.

A motorcycle riding teacher once explained to me that in order to ride safely, one needs to connect every two seconds and be aware of the place where the rubber meets the road. To stay safely in the river, one needs to stay aware of the changing waters and reconnect and adjust to flow. To stay in relationship, one needs to change with it, accepting that there is a mutual impact. The hope is in the fine balance of actively participating with no attachment to results. Trying to control or giving up and turning passively resentful are harmful to any relationship.

You affect the project, the person and the relationship and they all affect you, all adjusting and changing moment by moment. Deeply knowing and accepting this dance is the key to staying.

Hope and Faith

Some might argue that what was described here as hope is really faith. They might say that hope is a wish for a desired, yet unknown future, whereas faith has trust and certainty in it. From a purely linguistic analysis they could be right. I chose not to use faith because of its religious connotation. There can certainly be faith in one’s skills, experience, talents, friendships and even luck, yet, the common use of faith usually suggests trusting an all-powerful and all-knowing higher power. The commitment to stay in relationship described here has indeed many elements of faith, but without an external higher power. It also has many elements of hope as commonly used—expecting a positive future—with the addition of trust in one’s agency and commitment. It is a meeting point half way between faith and hope.

Whether you see your part in a relationship resembling more a tree or more a leaf; can you find hope in the very act of holding on?

When you take into awareness all the aspects of relationships, make a commitment and take responsibility for it, there can be joy in the freedom and strength flowing from the decision. Let’s call this hope.

The following poem: The Scottish Himalayan Expedition by W. H. Murray, illuminates some aspects of commitment discussed here and opens to further thoughts and imaginations.

Until one is committed
there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
there is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favor all manner
of unforeseen incidents and meetings
and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamt
would have come his way.

I have learned a deep respect
for one of Goethe’s couplets:
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”