The philosophy professor was commenting on a colleague’s Facebook post, echoing her thoughts and adding his own, with regard to the impending opening of our college. “We are oscillating between hope and despair right now,’’ he wrote. “Right now, it’s hope for me. I’m sticking with hope.”
Hope and despair. Two disparate emotions to toggle. In 2020, this makes crystal clear sense to all of us, doesn’t it?
This morning, we are packing up our cars and heading north to drop off our daughter Natalie at Siena College, for the start of her freshman year. What will that freshman year bring? Hope and despair are universal emotions in college, especially when embarking on a new journey as she is. But there are added layers to hope and despair in 2020, aren’t there? The sobering news yesterday about UNC Chapel Hill moving to remote learning as a result of a Covid outbreak grounds us, as though we needed such a reminder in this remarkable year of 2020.
Will this work? Will this experiment be sustainable? Will we make it unscathed to Thanksgiving? If you work on a college campus, as we do, these existential questions are an omnipresent buzz in your head. Toss in your own children being part of this grand experiment, and you are left with a complicated mix of emotions. Hope, despair, and add about a dozen more colorful adjectives as well.
Each day, we can choose to wake up, energized with the hope of a new day. We can also despair about what may be to come. Both are easy and both are natural. Let’s try this strategy: Hope for the best, and try to win the day, collectively. Easier said than done. If we can do that for about 90 days, hope will have prevailed, in terms of our Fall 2020 experiment. Yes, I know, hope is not a strategy. But it’s the tenuous house of cards to which we cling – today and in the coming days.
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