C-19: "Nexting" and the Connection to Hope

I recently borrowed the book Making Hope Happen by Shane Lopez from a friend. I started the book and then somehow couldn’t find it in my home this week as the social distancing began. The irony is not lost on me.

Well, the book turned up yesterday, so I can go back to this reading. But today, I wanted to share a concept from Lopez’s work on hope theory that has been on my mind: nexting. In hope theory, hope is active, and we have to be able to imagine pathways to our goals for the future. Nexting is part of this imagining the future. For example, we think of the next time we will see friends, when our next dental appointment is, when the next Marvel Universe movie is coming out. Kids as young as 3 can do some nexting in that we can say, “Next, we are going to brush your teeth…next, we are going to get in bed and read a story.” And this ability to imagine the future is quite helpful psychologically and in creating hope.

And then the pandemic was announced last week and our ability to do our normal nexting has taken a huge hit. We don’t know when we will next socialize, go to a concert, go to school or work, get a next paycheck, or be able to go to the grocery store at regular hours.

I listen to a podcast that comes out twice a week. This Monday’s episode was focused on the pandemic, and the host signed off by indicating that the show might be back later in the week. It really bothered me. I think I even talked back, saying, “Oh, no, you’d BETTER be back on Thursday. I need this podcast.”

Truth is, I enjoy the podcast, but I don’t need it. I am noticing the need and desire to connect with what is next. And I imagine that others do, too.

This brings up the balance of acceptance and changing what we can. We can practice acceptance that the world is different right now. We may experience feelings of frustration, panic, and sadness about this, but there are things we cannot force to be different. I cannot force my podcasters to create another podcast this week. I cannot decide when a comedy show that I had tickets for will be rescheduled.

Then there are things that we can change and work on. We can decide what book to read next or what TV series we will watch next. We can look at our available food and decide when to next go to the store. We can decide when to reach out to a friend or go outside.

Best wishes in finding and noticing your nexts.

See you tomorrow.