CONCEPT
Active Hope
Macy's distinction between optimism (a prediction) and active hope (a practice) — the decision to act on behalf of what one loves regardless of the probability of success.
Active hope is Joanna Macy's most transferable concept and the most easily misunderstood. It is not optimism, which depends on evidence that positive outcomes are probable. It is not wishful thinking, which depends on the suppression of disconfirming information. Active hope is a practice grounded in values: the daily, sometimes hourly decision to act on behalf of what one cares about, independent of any prediction about whether the caring will prevail. When evidence shifts, the optimist collapses and the wishful thinker denies; the practitioner of active hope adjusts tactics but not commitment, because the commitment was never to a predicted outcome. It was to a way of being in the world. In the AI moment, this distinction is what separates builders who sustain engagement across years of disruption from those who oscillate between triumphalist highs and collapse.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Macy developed the concept with psychologist Chris Johnstone, who brought clinical experience with addiction recovery to the collaboration. Both recognized that