Curtis\u2019 opening discussion draws on many disciplines as she distinguishes hope from faith, pure positivity, and optimism. Ultimately, she notes, hope is \u201cleaning in and working toward something meaningful to you\u2014even if you\u2019re not sure it\u2019s going to happen.\u201d Curtis considers beliefs about hope held by those in Japan, India, and ancient Greece, as well as observations by Friedrich Nietzsche, Emily Dickinson, and Barack Obama. She cites scientific studies that show the physical, psychological, and practical benefits of hope and examines the development of tools to measure it, including MRI brain imaging. The author doesn\u2019t downplay the adverse forces\u2014personal, local, or global, modest or extreme\u2014that make it difficult to keep this often delicate emotion alive, but she advocates for nurturing hope through nature, art, relationships, and education. She strikes a motivating note at the end by speaking to the power of hope to effect change, small or great, followed by brief profiles of activists working to improve the world and more suggestions for cultivating hope. Su\u00e1rez\u2019s illustrations\u2014rainbows of luminous semi-abstract, watercolorlike images\u2014appropriately brighten each page, while Curtis\u2019 writing is simple and clear, with information presented in brief, well-organized blocks. In a world where hope sometimes seems to be at a premium, this book offers inspiration and direction for developing a much-needed skill.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Curtis\u2019 opening discussion draws on many disciplines as she distinguishes hope from faith, pure positivity, and optimism. Ultimately, she notes, hope is \u201cleaning in and working toward something meaningful to you\u2014even if you\u2019re not sure it\u2019s going to happen.\u201d Curtis considers beliefs about hope held by those in Japan, India, and ancient Greece, as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}