What gives you hope for the future, in 2025?

January 7, 2025 3:25 PM

I asked this same question in 2022 and received some really wonderful answers. It feels like a lot has changed in the three-ish years since, some good and some bad. As scary as things may get, it’s worth finding the glimmers to hang onto. What’s giving you hope these days?
posted by summerteeth to Society & Culture (17 answers total)

Literally the only thing that truly feels hopeful to me today is that we were able to purchase a house (through Habitat for Humanity) and moved in just a couple of months ago. It's plenty big enough for us, and could adapt to more people if necessary.

This means our housing costs will finally be stable, which I am very grateful for... my entire adulthood has been impacted by continual worries about rent increases and/or finding a rare rental in the budget.
posted by stormyteal at 4:00 PM on January 7 [18 favorites]

Pitchers and catchers report in a little over a month.

For the 763rd day in a row, my son is clean and sober.

Our soon to be President has promised to bring home the hostages and stop the forever wars.

My other son should be home from his deployment to eastern Europe in a few months.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:03 PM on January 7 [5 favorites]

The Mediterranean diet is the first eating plan that I've encountered that has allowed me to lose weight and keep it off. After a lifetime of struggle, I finally feel like I'm on the right path.
posted by SPrintF at 4:35 PM on January 7 [4 favorites]

This very similar Ask from just after the election may have some good answers for you
posted by duien at 4:37 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]

My teenage trans son is growing up in a country where a significant portion of the populace is so incapable of simply sitting with uncomfortable thoughts or feelings -- let alone just acknowledging and dealing with the actual problems right in front of them -- that they instead without hesitation allow themselves to be whipped into a fervor to rail against innocents they've never met, and to sell their vote to politicians who so clearly have neither ethics nor purpose beyond serving the fragile egos of themselves and their empty billionaire masters. He’s well aware there’s real reason to fear the future and his eyes are open wider than mine, but on a regular basis, as he goes about his days without enough distance from a cacophony of misdirected spite and ignorance, I can hear him humming or singing to himself. And he still smiles, and laughs, and writes and draws and moves despite fear, and is generous and thoughtful and cares so deeply for others. This above all gives me hope.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 5:12 PM on January 7 [25 favorites]

All I've got is this: "This too shall pass."
posted by charris5005 at 5:50 PM on January 7 [5 favorites]

One of my clients, a farmer in their late 70's recently asked me to design a new tree avenue for the farm. They will not look there best 'til long after we're both long gone.

But even in my remote end of the Earth there is an increasing sense of nesting with both homes and gardens, but building and planting continues.
posted by unearthed at 7:51 PM on January 7 [8 favorites]

I recently mentored several young people doing Master's degrees in public policy. All of them were passionate, compassionate, values-forward, incredibly intelligent people who want to make a difference. And I don't think they are unique among their generation. There are a lot of bright young minds eager to make positive change - and very capable of doing so. We are facing huge struggles, but I am optimistic that the future will be in good hands.
posted by sonofsnark at 11:28 PM on January 7 [7 favorites]

In spite of a huge propaganda effort, global renewable energy production keeps increasing far faster than anyone predicted. In spite of a huge propaganda effort, many individuals and municipalities (and a few larger governments) are making better choices for the future regarding climate change, clean water, clean air, and biodiversity. In spite of a huge propaganda effort, my students really care about this stuff, and their conversations are about how to make the world better, not if they should.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:42 AM on January 8 [10 favorites]

I'm 72. I didn't live through the Great Depression or World War II, but I've seen threatening times and after them, great times. I'm thankful and I've been lucky. So like charris5005, I believe this will pass.

One example that pops into my mind: I have a vivid memory of what was called at the time the Saturday Night Massacre. I came home from the movies, turned on the tv, and heard a report that Nixon (during the Watergate mess) had fired Archibald Cox and had his office surrounded by FBI agents. From Wikipedia:

The events followed the refusal by Cox to drop a subpoena for the Nixon White House tapes at President Richard Nixon's request.

During a single evening on Saturday, October 20, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox; Richardson refused and resigned effective immediately. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned. Nixon then ordered the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to fire Cox. Bork carried out the dismissal as Nixon asked.

I felt that this was the start of a coop. But in fact, it was the turning point in the Watergate mess and lead to the move to impeach Nixon and, eventually, his resignation.

Who knows what Trump will do and how the country will respond. Yes, it's frightening but there will be good times ahead.
posted by tmdonahue at 6:24 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]

I hold onto a lot of hope, which is the hardest love we carry, and here's what comes to mind at this moment:
* When my chosen daughter's sweet kids, two Palestinian-Pakistani boys, join us in the streets as we protest for the liberation of Palestine -- this photo was taken by our photographer friend the day I met them
* My ever-growing communities: as a friend said to me once, we may never know all the people we could get to love
* The younger generations of activists who teach us how to exist and move and organize with expansive care and intersectionality, especially my dear friend Levi, who I call my beacon of hope
* The tulip bulbs I planted in my community garden plot last fall, and the renewed promise of gardens


"Motto" by Bertolt Brecht (trans. John Willett)

In the dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.
posted by wicked_sassy at 7:28 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]

Well, I mean, we're here, right, and talking to each other?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:15 AM on January 8 [5 favorites]

• Islam, a galaxy of wisdom, sound teaching for living life, and mind-blowing scholarship from its inception to the present time
• The manifest, clear presence of Allah SWT everywhere one cares to look
• Devoted Muslims with rock-solid faith like those of Gaza, Sudan, Western Sahara, the Uighur region, and the Rohingya of Myanmar
• The people in 12 Step fellowships who put the work into their programs and continue to carry the message to fellow addicts
• Non-human animals that care for each other
• The human capacity to love, create, reflect, and teach
• Laughing children
• Marvels of creation like fungi, Archaea, and other life forms we've only just begun to study

There's so much more but that's a fair start.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:16 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]

millennial and gen-z women. absolute powerhouses.
posted by j_curiouser at 2:23 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]

I teach in the humanities at a research university. When I started there, my STEM students, especially the grad students, would tell me about this great new cancer drug delivery system they were working on or a novel way to reduce dependence of fossil fuels. Twenty years later, most of what my first students were working on now exists--but the longer I'm there, the shorter time elapses between when my grad students are working on something and when it shows up in real life. I find this both exciting and reassuring.
posted by pangolin party at 4:12 PM on January 8 [8 favorites]

Mod note: Thanks for posting this question and thanks to all who responded! We've noted all this in the sidebar and in the Best Of blog!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:21 AM on January 10

Volunteering for local politics, I meet so many people who are spending their weekends trying to make their community a better place. It's fantastic. Even when I have a difficult conversation, such as calling a voter who ultimately will vote Republican, talking to them reminds me that our political views aren't usually as simplistic as national news makes them out to be and there's a lot of room for change.

in the U.S., reform caucuses in unions are changing the landscape of political action. For instance, the UAW's strike resulted in not just the kinds of things you expect such as pay increases but they were able to demand policy changes such as reopening a shuttered plant. Many different forms of support are now available to start a new union or a reform caucus thanks to Emergency Worker Organizing. We'll see attempts to limit union power over the next four years, but if people really voted based on their perception of the economy, that means there's plenty of bipartisan support for increasing worker compensation.

The tide seems to be turning against NIMBYism, with more U.S. cities enacting affordable housing policy.
posted by tofu_crouton at 9:33 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]