“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
Vaclav Havel (born 1936); poet, playwright, 1st president of Czech Republic
Vaclav Havel knows what he’s talking about in this quote. He was witness to the Soviet crack down on the Prague Spring in 1968, when thousands of Warsaw Pact troops occupied his homeland in response to mild reforms aimed at increased freedom. What seemed like an era of potential rebirth was quickly and brutally suppressed, and a major wave of emigration swept the country. Non-violent protests erupted, including Jan Palach’s suicidal self-immolation. It would be hard to be optimistic in such a time. But it was the beginning of a long, hard journey for Vaclav that would certainly make sense in the end. Banned from working in the theatre, Vaclav became more politically active, and the plays he wrote became passed hand-to-hand. Soon he was known as a leading dissident.
In 1979, he wrote, “…we never decided to become dissidents. We have been transformed into them, without quite knowing how, sometimes we have ended up in prison without precisely knowing how. We simply went ahead and did certain things that we felt we ought to do, and that seemed to us decent to do, nothing more nor less.”
Havel lived his life with the conviction that what he was doing was right and decent, and though he was not optimistic that the particulars of the Soviet reaction to his work would turn out well, he did maintain the hope that it would lead to a place that made sense.
While few of us face challenges quite on this level, there is something to be retained in from Havel’s experience as we manage difficult surprises, setbacks, and what may seem like a long, unfortunate night.
Of course, it’s worth noting that Havel saw the Soviets leave and went on to become a great leader of a free Czech Republic.
Maintain hope that in the end, even if it is not the outcome you may have sought, that it ultimately makes a kind of sense.
