Normally, I don’t talk about this publicly, but there have been weeks (more than once over the last few years) when I have wanted to throw in the towel on my kindness work.
To be clear, I’m not talking about walking away from being a kind person (because that’s more about who I am than what I do), I’m talking about the work aspect of it.
I don’t know if that surprises you or not, but it shouldn’t.
Specifically, there have been days where I looked at the insanity of the news cycle and thought, “what in the hell is the point in me spending my free time writing these kindness articles each week? It’s not like the world is getting any kinder. Not to mention, is anyone even reading these articles???”
I have sat in front of my MacBook and watched the blinking cursor on the blank page taunt me each week, as if to say, “aww…how adorable! This cornball Shola is back to write about some useless kindness topic while the world is on fire.” And, at the risk of sounding a little overdramatic, on some days when the world felt really dark, I felt the weight of it all pressing down on me as if I had a refrigerator sitting on my chest.
So yeah…the point of sharing this is that if you think writing weekly kindness articles magically immunizes me from really rough days, you would be wildly mistaken.
If you’ve ever struggled against the twins of despair (Helplessness and Hopelessness, for the uninitiated) like I have, I’m writing this to share my best strategies for keeping them both from destroying our lives.
Speaking of the twins, let’s get clear about who they are so we can effectively deal with them.
Helplessness is about feeling unable to control or change your current situation. It’s the sense that you lack the power, resources, or ability to influence what’s happening to you right now. You might feel helpless when facing a challenging work situation, dealing with a difficult relationship, or confronting a problem you don’t know how to solve (like, the current state of the world for instance). The key aspect is feeling powerless in the present moment.
Hopelessness, on the other hand, is about the future. It’s the belief that things won’t get better, that positive change is impossible, and that suffering or difficult circumstances will continue indefinitely. In summary, hopelessness involves a loss of expectation that any meaningful improvement is possible.
While they both objectively suck for slightly different reasons, the good news is that helplessness and hopelessness aren’t permanent conditions.
Both are learned beliefs, and thankfully, if they can be learned, that means that they can also be unlearned.
So let’s talk about how we can begin the unlearning process.
Here’s how the twins of despair get us to fall into their trap when the world feels too broken to fix (at least, I’ll share how they got me).
When we start trying to care about everything that’s wrong, every injustice, every conflict, and every crisis happening anywhere on the planet, the only predictable outcome is soul-crushing disillusionment.
And unless you’re a newly-accepted member of the Avengers (and I know you’re not, because I’m a hardcore Marvel nerd and those things don’t sneak past me 😅), most of us non-superhumans aren’t built to fight against all that on a daily basis.
But still, many of us choose to drink from the global firehose of suffering at full blast every day, and our already stressed-out nervous systems pay a steep price for it. And as someone who has gone down that path more often than I would like to admit, doing so is NOT recipe for mental wellness or a good night’s sleep, I can assure you.
So, what can we do about this? I have two suggestions.
First, we have to intentionally take a break from the media consumption that’s making our sense of reality worse than the reality actually is.
You know this as well as I do—media outlets, cable news programming, and social media platforms all are guided by algorithms that reward bombarding us with bad news. Which means, if your default information diet is heavily, almost cartoonishly, biased toward the terrible things that those platforms are feeding you, you’re making it infinitely easier for the twins to wreck your life.
To combat this (and my second suggestion), is to start what I call my “Evidence of Good” collection.
Every day, I make it my goal to find one story of human kindness. Sometimes it’s something huge, but more often than not, it’s something small.
For example, a teacher going above and beyond, a local news story about something genuinely positive, or even looking out of your window and seeing a kind passer-by help an elderly neighbor carry her groceries inside.
I know this may sound a little too simplistic for some people (or borderline ridiculous to others, considering that the world is on fire as you’re reading this), but it’s not an overstatement to say this practice has made me feel more hopeful and more motivated than I have in years. I wish I started this practice sooner.
Still though, I already know what some folks might be thinking as they read the previous paragraph:
“Umm Shola... didn’t you just say that the world is on fire??? How is ignoring that fact helpful? Sticking our head in the sand is NOT the energy this moment needs.”
No, this isn’t about ignoring anything. This is about balance. And balance is something that’s in very short supply these days.
The world has always been a mixture of darkness and light, cruelty and kindness, and problems and progress. The difference is that now we’re only being force-fed the darkness.
However, when we make the daily choice to turn off cable news, stop doomscrolling on social media, and actually touch grass and talk to our fellow humans in real life, our sense of the world rebalances.
Yes, there is enormous brokenness in the world, and there is also enormous good too: both things can be true at the same time. Letting the first truth eclipse the second is what gives Helplessness and Hopelessness their power.
Thankfully, choosing to balance our focus begins to take that power away from them.
And once their power is gone, we can finally talk about defeating them.
Hi, it’s Shola! Allow me to interrupt your reading to mention that the fastest way to grow this kindness movement is to kindly share this article with others. If you’ve found this article helpful, please share that helpfulness with others. It’s free and it only takes a second.
I actually know people who believe that the only way to finally defeat Helplessness and Hopelessness is to wish for a more consistently positive news cycle. Please know that I’m saying this with love: do NOT be like those people.
First of all, what the news cycle covers is completely out of our control, and secondly, the news cycle isn’t going to positively change anytime soon. As I’ve mentioned before, waiting for someday is one of the worst life strategies in existence.
Helplessness and Hopelessness are incredibly powerful adversaries, and we’re not going to defeat them with weak “hopes and prayers” energy.
The only way we can finally defeat the twins is with the daily reminder that we have agency.
I call it my Daily Agency Practice and it’s super simple, but please don’t sleep on the power of this due to its simplicity. I’ve been doing this since November 2024 (at a time when helplessness and hopelessness damn near destroyed me) and it works.
Every day, I take one specific, concrete action that demonstrates my agency.
To be clear, I’m not talking about a thought, an intention, or a wish. I’m talking about an actual action that produces an actual effect. For a personal example, on Mondays, my Daily Agency Practice is writing a weekly kindness article (you’re currently reading one of them now).
And no, you don’t need to publish articles on Substack every week to prove that you have agency (but if that’s your jam, please go for it). It can be much smaller than that, and in fact, most of my daily agency actions are way smaller because it makes this practice sustainable.
Here are some examples to get you thinking:
Volunteer for an hour at the local animal shelter
Make a small donation to an organization doing work that matters
Send a thoughtful message to one person who needs encouragement
Have the difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding
Pick up the trash on your block
Write to your elected representative about one specific issue
As you can see, none of the above actions are heroic. No one is going to break ground in front of our favorite sports arena to build a statue in honor of our awesomeness. And we’re not going to change the world by donating $5 to our favorite charities…but, that’s not the point.
The point of these seemingly small acts is to provide irrefutable evidence to our nervous systems, every single day, that we aren’t actually powerless.
If you’re able to keep this up over months and years, this will effectively rewire your default state.
The best part is that we’ll stop being people who feel helpless and hopeless when distressing news hits our feed, and we’ll start being people who, regardless of what the world throws at us, have a track record of making things slightly better.
Helplessness and Hopelessness cannot attack a person with a daily agency practice. Our daily action blocks access to the areas of our minds where they can do their most insidious work.
One last point on this, family. We are not required to fix everything. You and I were never going to be able to, because as mentioned earlier, we’re not built for that. But, if you’re serious about that kindness life (and I’ll assume that you are because you’re still reading this article), you are required to fix something.
My suggestion is to start by fixing the thing that’s in your circle of control and influence. I’m confident that you know exactly what that thing is for you.
The best part is that when we focus on that thing, with daily intention, the twins lose their vice-like grip over our lives and we get one step closer to the kinder world we’re trying to create here.
Look y’all, the world has always been broken, and it will continue to be broken for as long as we’re alive. However, the same world is also being actively mended by ordinary people like you and me doing small things faithfully, year after year.
If we’re willing to commit to being one of those people today, tomorrow, and the day after that, Helplessness and Hopelessness will have no shot against us. ❤️
Ubuntu,
Shola aka Brother Teresa
It’s free, it’s fast, and most of all, it tells me you value this work and that I should keep writing every week in pursuit of a kinder world. Just tap on the “❤️ LIKE” button below!
What’s one piece of “good evidence” you’ve seen recently that gave you hope? How do you practice daily agency in your life? Drop it in the comments so we can collectively stand strong together against Helplessness and Hopelessness.
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