The other side of this coin is hopelessness. The sense that nothing and noone can make any difference, so that it’s pointless to even try. This goes hand in hand with cynicism: the ‘everyone is out to get me so I’d better be on the lookout (or even be preemptive)’ stance.

Hope is different. Hope is facing down the worst of the awfulness and refusing to give up. Hope is active. It’s about seeing the reality, and holding on to the possibility that things can get better even in the darkest moments. It’s about taking action, however small, to move towards that. For me there’s something about moving from the passive to the active which is really pertinent, and that sense of doing something constructive, however small, empowers me to carry on.

In our day to day dealings with other humans it may be about looking for the positive in the person while simultaneously acknowledging that what they are doing may not be okay. Separating the actions from the person; prizing the person while not condoning the actions. They are not bad, the thing they are doing is bad.

There are a few world ‘leaders’ out there right now who are testing that practise to the max. But in my personal life, I hold this to be true. Having been a person who, for many years expected the worst from people and went into most conversations armed for confrontation, I know that my life is sweeter, kinder, and more generous since I began to look for the good, to try to understand why people acted in certain ways. And weirdly, when I started to do this, I was met with more open and generous responses. Win-win.

In our response to world events, hopeful action may take the form of joining with other like-minded people to become more active in whichever arena we feel most strongly about. (More about this another time.)

Facing the worst of reality, and deciding to work in some small way towards something better. This is not sunshine and butterflies, this is holding hope.

There are many parts of our world I am interested in: restoring nature, regenerative economics, ways to change the narrative around infinite growth in a finite world, mental health and the intersection of politics, social justice, and reconnection - with each other and with the natural world.

In the end, I realise there is one thing that arches over, links together, all these - and that is hope. Active hope. Hope which says ‘we are many, together we can do something positive’. Hope which says ‘I care for you, you care for me, and that makes a difference’.  Hope which says ‘while I walk in a woodland with snowdrops pushing through the endless cold and mud of this Norfolk winter, I can let my anxiety fall away just for a moment and en-joy.’

So this is me, Annie, going forward. I invite you to join me.