Reasons to Be Hopeful: What remains consoling, inspiring and beautiful
An exploration of the many reasons to remain hopeful in the face of life's disappointments and challenges.

In a world that isn’t short of darkness, there could be few more urgent priorities than to spend time rehearsing for ourselves why life – despite all its challenges – still has so much to offer us; why there are still so many reasons to be hopeful.

Here is a collection of some of the most persuasive arguments for staying on the side of optimism, creativity, kindness, calm and hope. Across a series of essays, we learn why we still have the right to feel purposeful and buoyant despite everything that is challenging: because there is still so much more to discover, because love can triumph sometimes, because we can delight in summer days and the light of dawn, because we are not alone in our suffering, because we are never far from the option of a slice of cake or a bath, because we are very small things in a mighty and beautiful universe and because we don’t require perfection for things to feel good enough.

In a tone that avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality and cynicism, the book urges us to reconnect with our more resilient selves, bidding us to recover faith in what is still possible. At points funny and always encouraging and kind, here is an ideal friend to guide us back to courage and delight.

  • A TOOL TO ASSIST US IN OUR SEARCH FOR A REASON TO BE: the book is an eclectic collection of short essays on wide-ranging subjects, from an extraordinary encounter between Mick Jagger and an unfamiliar Jesuit priest to the escapism found in Iranian cinema.
  • HOPEFULNESS FOR PESSIMISTS: an honest and accessible guide to navigate us through the darkness to light.
  • ILLUSTRATED THROUGHOUT: with a vibrant mix of artworks, photography and illustration.
  • A HIGHLY RELATABLE BOOK: that offers comfort and support in our darker moments, while guiding us towards an optimistic future.
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Reasons to Be Hopeful: What remains consoling, inspiring and beautiful
An exploration of the many reasons to remain hopeful in the face of life's disappointments and challenges.

In a world that isn’t short of darkness, there could be few more urgent priorities than to spend time rehearsing for ourselves why life – despite all its challenges – still has so much to offer us; why there are still so many reasons to be hopeful.

Here is a collection of some of the most persuasive arguments for staying on the side of optimism, creativity, kindness, calm and hope. Across a series of essays, we learn why we still have the right to feel purposeful and buoyant despite everything that is challenging: because there is still so much more to discover, because love can triumph sometimes, because we can delight in summer days and the light of dawn, because we are not alone in our suffering, because we are never far from the option of a slice of cake or a bath, because we are very small things in a mighty and beautiful universe and because we don’t require perfection for things to feel good enough.

In a tone that avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality and cynicism, the book urges us to reconnect with our more resilient selves, bidding us to recover faith in what is still possible. At points funny and always encouraging and kind, here is an ideal friend to guide us back to courage and delight.

  • A TOOL TO ASSIST US IN OUR SEARCH FOR A REASON TO BE: the book is an eclectic collection of short essays on wide-ranging subjects, from an extraordinary encounter between Mick Jagger and an unfamiliar Jesuit priest to the escapism found in Iranian cinema.
  • HOPEFULNESS FOR PESSIMISTS: an honest and accessible guide to navigate us through the darkness to light.
  • ILLUSTRATED THROUGHOUT: with a vibrant mix of artworks, photography and illustration.
  • A HIGHLY RELATABLE BOOK: that offers comfort and support in our darker moments, while guiding us towards an optimistic future.
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Reasons to Be Hopeful: What remains consoling, inspiring and beautiful

Reasons to Be Hopeful: What remains consoling, inspiring and beautiful

by The School of Life
Reasons to Be Hopeful: What remains consoling, inspiring and beautiful

Reasons to Be Hopeful: What remains consoling, inspiring and beautiful

by The School of Life

Hardcover

$24.99 
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Overview

An exploration of the many reasons to remain hopeful in the face of life's disappointments and challenges.

In a world that isn’t short of darkness, there could be few more urgent priorities than to spend time rehearsing for ourselves why life – despite all its challenges – still has so much to offer us; why there are still so many reasons to be hopeful.

Here is a collection of some of the most persuasive arguments for staying on the side of optimism, creativity, kindness, calm and hope. Across a series of essays, we learn why we still have the right to feel purposeful and buoyant despite everything that is challenging: because there is still so much more to discover, because love can triumph sometimes, because we can delight in summer days and the light of dawn, because we are not alone in our suffering, because we are never far from the option of a slice of cake or a bath, because we are very small things in a mighty and beautiful universe and because we don’t require perfection for things to feel good enough.

In a tone that avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality and cynicism, the book urges us to reconnect with our more resilient selves, bidding us to recover faith in what is still possible. At points funny and always encouraging and kind, here is an ideal friend to guide us back to courage and delight.

  • A TOOL TO ASSIST US IN OUR SEARCH FOR A REASON TO BE: the book is an eclectic collection of short essays on wide-ranging subjects, from an extraordinary encounter between Mick Jagger and an unfamiliar Jesuit priest to the escapism found in Iranian cinema.
  • HOPEFULNESS FOR PESSIMISTS: an honest and accessible guide to navigate us through the darkness to light.
  • ILLUSTRATED THROUGHOUT: with a vibrant mix of artworks, photography and illustration.
  • A HIGHLY RELATABLE BOOK: that offers comfort and support in our darker moments, while guiding us towards an optimistic future.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781912891894
Publisher: The School of Life
Publication date: 08/01/2023
Pages: 228
Sales rank: 817,724
Product dimensions: 5.71(w) x 7.76(h) x (d)

About the Author

The School of Life is a global organization helping people lead more fulfilled lives. Through our range of books, gifts and stationery we aim to prompt more thoughtful natures and help everyone to find fulfillment.

The School of Life is a resource for exploring self-knowledge, relationships, work, socializing, finding calm, and enjoying culture through content, community, and conversation. You can find us online, in stores and in welcoming spaces around the world offering classes, events, and one-to-one therapy sessions.

The School of Life is a rapidly growing global brand, with over 7 million YouTube subscribers, 389,000 Facebook followers, 174,000 Instagram followers and 166,000 Twitter followers.

The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of the School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton. Their books share a coherent, curated message that speaks with one voice: calm, reassuring, and sane.

Read an Excerpt

ix. This too shall pass

The hotaru

One of nature’s odder creatures is the firefly, a soft-bodied beetle that emits a warm yellow glow from its lower abdomen, typically at twilight, in order to attract mates or prey. The firefly is a common sight in Japan, where it is known as the hotaru. Hotarus are at their most plentiful in June and July and can be seen buzzing in large groups around rivers and lakes. The glittering light is so enchanting that the Japanese have traditionally held firefly festivals – or hotaru matsuri – to watch the creatures caper and recite poetry in their honor.

Something else has happened to the firefly in Japanese culture: it has become philosophical. Zen Buddhist poets and philosophers (the two terms here are largely interchangeable) have urged us to look at fireflies as sources of a distinctive wisdom and serenity. What we are being invited to see in the firefly is not an insect, but a version ourselves. We too are tiny against the darkness, we too have no option but to put on a desperate lightshow in the hope of enticing possible partners and we too won’t last very long (fireflies die within three weeks).

Importantly, the metaphor is a generous one. We’re not being likened to rats or flies, with whom we have a few less flattering similarities as well. Fireflies are graceful and mesmerizing. They appear bold and touching, protesting bravely against the blackness in the limited hours accorded to them.

Many of our bad moods and troubles spring from an overambitious sense of who we are. We ascribe to ourselves an importance that the natural world and our fellow humans turn out not recognize. We protest in a bad temper at our perceived puniness and lack of agency.

The metaphor of the firefly bids us to loosen our hold on arrogance and irritation. We should not complain at our slightness, we should submit to it with wonder and poise. It isn’t a personal curse that we won’t live very long and that our actions are but a short merry dance. We should know and accept our nature; a firefly should not mistake itself for a lion or a tortoise. It’s possible to imagine our cities from outer space looking much like the frantic swirls of fireflies across a lake: touching, absurd, beautiful … and miniscule within the order of the cosmos.

The Zen school of Buddhism repeatedly locates important philosophical themes in the natural world, for example, in relation to bamboo (evocative of resilience), water (a symbol of patient strength, capable of wearing down stone) and cherry blossoms (an emblem of the brevity of happiness). Zen seeks to hang its ideology onto everyday things, because it wants to make use of what is most ordinarily in our sight to keep us tethered to nourishing truths.

It also surrounds its lessons with poetry. In his legendary haiku, the great 17th-century poet Matsuo Basho attempts to quieten our egoistic ambition by focusing us on a firefly, through which we may grow more attentive to our own finitude:

Falling from
A blade of grass,
to fly off –
A firefly.


- Matsuo Basho, firefly haiku

The firefly, on its slender wings, is the ideal reminder of a Zen belief in dignified resignation in the face of the mightiness and destructiveness of the natural order. Kobayashi Issa, an 18th-century Buddhist priest and haiku master, wrote 230 poems on fireflies. In one of the most celebrated, he captures a moment in high summer when time is momentarily stilled as the insects put on their show:

The fireflies are sparkling
And even the mouth of a frog
Hangs wide open


- Kobayashi Issa

It is a tiny moment of satori, or enlightenment. The frog is as wonderstruck as the poet at the movements of the brave, doomed fireflies – much as we should be amazed, grateful and ultimately joyous to have been allocated a few brief moments in which to dance and flicker against the darkness of an impenetrable, 13.8-billion-year-old universe.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Reasons to be Hopeful

I. Reasons of Darkness i. Suffering is normal ii. Our brains are not fit for purpose iii. It would have been better not to be born iv. Love will injure us v. The lust for vengeance is endemic vi. We mass-produce idiocy vii. We regret so much viii. The advantages of sadness

II. Reasons of Detachment i. We need perspective ii. The ultimate fate of humanity is not our business iii. If it all collapsed, we’d be fine, eventually iv. The equality of eternity v. Live in voluntary exile vi. We have blessedly poor memories vii. Much of what others believe is nonsense viii. Defiance ix. This too shall pass x. Dust to dust

III. Reasons of Light i. There’s still time to find joy ii. Small pleasures iii. The consolations of home iv. Friends v. The beauty of industry vi. Reasons that bypass reason vii. Affection rather than understanding viii. Elsewhere ix. Wonder x. The promise of dawn xi. Good escapism xii. Acceptance xiii. Future reasons to live

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