It is normal and useful to consider the problems one observes.

However, how we feel about them depends on how we understand the relationship between the problems and the possibilities to solve them.

When solving those perceived problems depends on others, when solving them is a task beyond one’s ability to act, it is easy to experience feelings of helplessness and become somewhat gloomy. It is something one can often observe in conversations when digging into problems and seeing them become too complex to still know how to solve them.

Whenever such a situation is reached, it is almost guaranteed that addressing the perceived problem requires a different approach. It’s a situation in which, instead of seeking to solve the problem, searching for an accessible lever becomes the way to go. Hope then emerges from seeing accessible actions.

What assists hope most is finding leverage that is in one’s own hands. Often, the leverage that one finds doesn’t need to provide a direct solution to the problem one perceived. It may, however, solve it as an independent outcome.

Most often, such leverage is to be found in actions that support the community and in allowing oneself to see how one’s actions contribute to one’s community. They shift one’s thinking from focusing on what is wrong for oneself to becoming aware of what helps the community one is part of.

What this does is help oneself experience oneself as part of something larger than us.