What is this Hope We Choose?

Hope is a current confidence in a better future.  "Ho hum," you might yawn.  "So what?"  If hope is limited to the emotion of feeling "hopeful," then I'll be bored right alongside you.  However, current psychological research sees hope as "a dynamic, powerful and pervasive cognitive process that is observable across numerous contexts..." (Hellend and Winston, 2005, "Toward a Deeper Understanding of Hope and Leadership").

C. Richard Snyder and his colleagues have given hope a formal definition as a process.  Hope is defined as "a positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful (a) agency (goal-directed energy) and (b) pathways (planning to meet goals)." (The Handbook of Social and Clinical Psychology, 1991, page 285).

In a simpler way, Snyder defines hope as "willpower" (agency) and "waypower" (pathways) applied to reaching an identified and meaningful goal.  The clearest and simplest presentation of this hope theory is in Snyder's 1994 book, The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here.

How has this applied to my experiences of loss, grieving and reconstruction?  When a loved one dies, the goals, plans and partnerships connected with her die as well.  

I remember thinking so many times, "What's the point of it all?"  My goals had been so deeply tied into achieving them with Anne that I couldn't imagine having goals without her.  One of the adjustments I had to make was to envision a much larger framework for meaning and purpose for my life.  I  had such a purpose intellectually as a Christian, but for the first time in over thirty years, I had to grasp that vision of ends and purposes as more of a "solo" performance.

I suspect that this is the case for many of us widowers.  We seem to find so much of our purpose in life as rooted in living with and loving our spouse.  Other purposes and goals gradually fall away as we focus more and more energy on that one true friend in this life.  If she is gone, the structure collapses. The sense of being "lost" is, I think, extremely common among widowers.

There is no more effective blockage of a path to the future than death.  By definition all the paths connected to Anne were closed.  So envisioning my life goals in different ways was one thing.  Finding alternative pathways to the future was another.  Here my strengths of learning, curiosity and flexibility have served me well.  In that I know I do not fit the norm, and I am grateful for being "odd" in that particular way.

There is no greater experience of "learned helplessness" than dealing with the sudden death of a loved one.  That sense of helplessness devastated my sense of agency.  I couldn't do anything to change what had happened.  I felt guilty and ashamed that I couldn't do anything.  I felt that I had failed her and everyone who loved her.  Developing an identity as someone worthy of love and able to do something has been important in moving forward once again.  That identity is critical to the sense of what Snyder calls "agency."

A worthy vision, effective paths toward that vision, and the personal capacity to follow those paths--that's hope from the perspective of positive psychology.  That perspective has been a lifesaver for me over and over in the last year and a half.