“Life begins on the other side of despair.” Jean-Paul Sartre
“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining” John F. Kennedy
“It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Frederick Douglass
I’ve had a long love affair with Possibility. It started when I founded Possibilities, Inc. in 1982. I had become disenchanted with the options of being a pessimist or an optimist. Neither one appealed to me. Pessimists seemed too negative and hopeless; optimists came across as naïve and delusional. When Possibility walked into my life, I was immediately enamored.
By 1990, I had written 16 promotion manuals entitled Lifestyle Possibilities. I fell hook, line, and sinker. After all these years, my love of possibilities has never wavered. No affairs with hopelessness. No flirtations with despair. Just an enduring belief in possibility. I even define faith as the belief that change is possible. To me, despair has never been an attractive option. Maybe I’ve just been lucky.
Despair is not only a feeling of profound sadness; it is also a cognitive cage. It creates psychological barriers and convictions that lead us to believe that the current reality is the only possible reality. When individuals or nations are trapped in protracted conflict, systemic suffering, or generational trauma, despair presents itself as clear-eyed realism. In this state, hope for repair is often dismissed as a dangerous, naive illusion. Unless you are Barack Obama whose Audacity of Hope created a whole new reality.
The greatest hurdle in moving from despair to repair is a foundational crisis of faith: people fundamentally do not believe that change is possible. Yet, history repeatedly demonstrates that the trajectory of human progress relies on a paradox. Hope is routinely treated as an impossibility—until the “impossible” happens. To bridge the chasm between a broken present and a restored future, we need to understand how the boundary of possibility shifts, transforming radical imagination into historical fact. Yes, it is possible that we can begin to repair the broken system in which we are now living. Even under the dark clouds created by the current administration, there is still enough sunshine to repair the damage.
When situations seem hopelessly intractable, we often succumb to a status quo bias—particularly when political, social, or geographic realities persist for long periods of time. That bias then hardens in the public imagination. What once seemed inconceivable gradually becomes normative. Toxic masculinity, psychological pathology, and a continuous stream of lies no longer surprise us. We write if off by saying, “It’s just the way things have always been done.” Except they haven’t and they don’t need to.
Yes, institutions, relationships, and trust are badly broken, but they can be repaired.
Despair deepens when we assume the future will simply be a replication of the painful present. Under those conditions, we often turn on each other instead of staying laser focused on the real enemy. MAGA did this with the Republican Party. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are now doing it within the Democratic Party. David Brooks writes eloquently about this phenomenon in a recent Atlantic article. Repair is going to require unification and collective strength.
Before historical ruptures occur, the forces preventing change seem monolithic and invincible. The paralysis of imagination ensures that any effort toward “repair” is choked at the root. If a better outcome is deemed structurally impossible, then any energy expended toward healing, diplomacy, or reconstruction is viewed as a fool’s errand.
The transition from despair to repair is rarely a smooth, linear progression. Instead, it is often catalyzed by sudden shifts that shatter the illusion of permanence. Fortunately, history provides us with many examples of periods of time in which seemingly intractable deadlocks dissolved, proving that the boundaries of possibility are far more elastic than we believe.
For centuries, the geopolitical landscape of Europe and the Middle East seemed locked in rigid, tragic patterns.
- The State of Israel: For nearly two millennia, the Jewish diaspora endured systemic persecution, culminating in the horrific devastation of the Holocaust. The idea of re-establishing a sovereign Jewish state in their ancestral homeland was long dismissed by geopolitical pragmatists as an idealistic dream. Yet, against overwhelming historical and diplomatic odds, the State of Israel was established, fundamentally rewriting the map and the possibilities of Jewish self-determination.
- The Franco-German Reconciliation: For generations, France and Germany were locked in a cycle of existential enmity, culminating in the catastrophic slaughter of World Wars I and II. The notion that these two giants could ever share open borders, a unified economic vision, and deep diplomatic ties was unthinkable. Yet, the foundational steps taken after 1945 proved that even the deepest, bloodiest rivalries can yield to a shared architecture of peace.
When despair convinces us that enemies can never become partners, or that oppressive structures can never be dismantled, history offers stark corrections.
- The Camp David Accords (1979): Following four major wars in three decades, the animosity between Egypt and Israel was considered a permanent feature of Middle Eastern politics. The psychological barrier to peace was immense. Yet, when President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the peace treaty in 1979, they demonstrated that diplomatic courage could dismantle decades of entrenched hostility.
- The Fall of the Berlin Wall (1989): The Cold War division of Europe, symbolized by the concrete barrier splitting Berlin, felt like a permanent fixture of late-20th-century life. Intelligence agencies and political scientists assumed the Soviet bloc would endure for decades more. Yet, in a sudden, breathless crescendo of civic courage, the wall fell in 1989, proving that oppressive structures are often far more fragile than they appear.
Beyond these specific milestones, we can look to other profound shifts where despair was replaced by radical repair:
- The End of Apartheid in South Africa: A system of institutionalized racial oppression that seemed destined to end in a bloody civil war was instead dismantled through a combination of international pressure, internal resistance, and a miraculous commitment to truth and reconciliation. Nelson Mandela led that transformation by honestly and courageously acknowledging past, articulating an inspiring vision for the future, and by setting clear priorities for repair.
- The Good Friday Agreement (1998): Decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, known simply as “The Troubles,” had left communities deeply traumatized and cynical. The agreement proved that even the most intimate, bloody, neighbor-against-neighbor conflicts can find a path toward structural peace.
If repair is dependent upon the belief in possibility, how do we cultivate that belief when surrounded by ruins (e.g. Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan) and ruthless recklessness (the Trump Administration).
The shift requires us to see hope as an active virtue. It is the stubborn refusal to allow the present moment to have the final word. Moving from despair to repair requires a few courageous actors—often visionaries, community leaders, or exhausted adversaries—who are willing to act as if peace and restoration are possible. Think Aziz Abu Sarah and Moaz Inon. Their actions create a crack in the cage of despair. When that crack appears, the collective imagination expands. What was “impossible” yesterday becomes a “remote probability” today and an “inevitability” tomorrow.
What once seemed impossible and intractable becomes possible: walls come down, borders and boundaries open, young minds are deepened, AND wars continue right up until the moment they do not. The permanence of brokenness becomes another illusion if we invest in building human capital, providing universal health care, and supporting environmental responsibility. As Frederick Douglas said long ago, “It’s easier to build healthy children than repair broken men.”
I’m still hoping it’s possible to reverse the rightward trends around the world. I still believe it’s possible to defeat the current administration and repair the institutions, relationships, and trust that have been destroyed over the past 10 years.
To me, this journey from despair to repair may be one of the most difficult individual and collective challenges we can undertake. It requires us to lay down our armor—the protective cynicism that shields us from disappointment—and risk believing in a future we cannot yet see.
The historical precedents of Israel, the Franco-German border, the Camp David Accords, and the Berlin Wall serve as vital reminders for modern despair. They do not suggest that repair is easy, or that it happens without immense sacrifice and ongoing struggle. Rather, they stand as concrete proof that the horizon of human potential is wider than our current misery suggests.
We can’t wait for hope to become possible before we begin the work of repair. If we wait for a guarantee of success before we dare to hope, we doom ourselves to the permanent custody of our present ruins. Repair does not begin when the circumstances change; it begins the moment we believe that change is possible.
I’m hoping a new “life will begin for us on the other side of despair.” And I’m hoping more people fall in love with Possibility. She doesn’t demand a monogamous relationships or monolithic worldviews. She is open to all. May it be so.
