A month or so ago, a colleague shared a quote from Vaclav Havel on our staff Teams channel: “Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well… but rather an ability to work for something because it is good… Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
This quote has stuck with me. I often think of hope as something like a wish, but it’s more than that. Hope is deeper and more meaningful than a wish. It is the belief that something should be a certain way, and the willingness to make it so. I hold deep hope that we can build a better future for Colorado’s kids.
As we wrapped up the legislative session this week, this definition of hope kept coming back to me. This year’s session was particularly difficult. There were wins and losses, there were moments of frustration and clarity, and there was a lot of hope. I see it in our team that never wavers, in legislators who continue to push for wins for kids, in our partners who show up day after day. We all know that ensuring kids have the supports and programs that keep them healthy, help them learn, and keep them safe makes sense. Investing in their future makes sense. Holding hope for every child’s future makes sense.
Hope takes hard work. If we want a better future for our kids, then we must do more than wish. We must dig deep and break down the structures and systems that constrain our investments in child care, education, and health care. We must build communities where children feel safe, free to learn, to be themselves, and to thrive. We must be the adults our kids need us to be – people who know, with certainty, that creating a better future for a child makes sense even when it’s hard. It’s letting kids just be kids while we do the work.
I believe, deeply, that a better future for our children is possible. It’s what I choose to hope for every day.
