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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Lifestyle
Eleanor Gordon-Smith

I feel despair about the state of the world. How can I find the courage to not abandon hope?

A figure holding a light while another cringes behind prison bars
‘We had better choose to cultivate hope instead of waiting for it because that’s the only way we’ll be able to show up for the people who have it far worse than us,’ Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. Painting: Hope in the Prison of Despair by Evelyn De Morgan. Illustration: Artepics/Alamy

There is a feeling of dread lurking in my every day. Wars, famine, the cost-of-living crisis, governments turning their backs on the most vulnerable, inhumane asylum seeker policies, the rise of the far right in Europe, the climate crisis.

I know this is not the first time in the history of humanity that it seems as though it is all going to shit but that knowledge does not necessarily bring me any peace.

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