Reflect

When the headlines are full of all the things that are wrong with the world, it’s easy to start thinking that the bad actors outweigh the good. It’s the same when we look at history; how could we possibly be hopeful when history is told as a progression of one war after another? The historian Howard Zinn offers a counterpoint. “To be hopeful in bad times,” he writes, “is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.” We humans can sure mess things up, but we can also do magnificent things.