Even if you can get your mind in a state of optimism, ready to move boldly, you might be limited by the fears within and around you. So often this past week I’ve noticed how when someone tries to offer an optimistic perspective it gets met with an almost aggressive despair, with an edge of anger that this other person is not in the despair as well.

It is hard when we’re not in the same place. Scared and angry people may feel more alone, more terrified when others don’t mirror back these terrifying imaginations of the future. The optimist may well be putting on blinders but they may also know that there’s more to see than the horror, and the horror can freeze us in uselessness without some kind of hope to balance it.

Let both have their say and know neither cannot tell the full truth because we can never know how the future will unfold. The prophets of doom and the heralds of unrealistic possibility speak for potentials in the moment, not certainties. You need not argue with everything that is said. Only let this tension start to wriggle you out of stuckness.