In the 1950s, Curt Richter, a professor at Johns Hopkins, did a pretty well-known study with rats. I think a lot of people now would say it was quite cruel, although at the time rats were clearly the most popular animal being used in psychological studies.
In his experiment, he compared a group of domestic rats to a group of wild ones. He placed them in buckets of water to study their survivability. Prior to the experiments, I'm sure he thought the wild rats would be the ones to survive the longest, as they had clearly faced the most struggle in life.
Surprisingly, some of the domesticated rats were actually able to stay afloat for a long period of time, while essentially all of the wild rats drowned within minutes.
In his words:
“The situation of these rats scarcely seems one demanding fight or flight—it is rather one of hopelessness…”
He then studied them further. He wanted to introduce hope to the rats to see how they would respond. So he started the experiment again, and just before a rat was about to meet its demise, he pulled it out of the water and held it a while, allowing it to recover.
When he put it back in the water, it survived for a much longer time than previously. Some of them even swam for a few days.
Although the experiment may be viewed as rather brutal, we can learn some things about the power of hope through the rat's unfortunate circumstance.
Obviously as humans we're a much different species than rats, but even so, there could be a biological mechanism at work within us when we have nothing left but hope itself.
I think it speaks volumes about what we can truly make it through if we can find a way to never give up.
Hope has always seemed like something for children to me. It's not a tangible tool to grasp and use. It's—yet again—a mindset. One to practice and apply.
It feels like it becomes yet another tool that gets stripped from us as we venture into adulthood and are forced into a type of jaded awareness from the world. We start to become skeptics, thinking that there will be some added caveat behind every corner.
A stipulation here and there is sure to knock us into a place of giving up. Once we're a certain age, we've seen it all.
I've talked about this idea of resilience, and this idea of becoming a warrior through trying times. And I think some of those moments might strip us of the most important utensil of all.
If we go through enough obstacles, life seems to begin to rob us of hope. And without hope, resilience can't abound.
Hope gives us an ability unlike any other. It gives us an edge. Looking forward to the future is one of the most powerful weapons against sadness, anxiety, pain, torment—you name it.
All we need is a little bit. A small amount of hope opens a door. And an open door adds to it. It's okay to cling to hope when you feel like nothing else is working.
In fact, it's vital. Sometimes it's the only thing that'll keep us swimming.
Has anything happened recently that made you abandon hope? What did you learn about yourself? What people and resources are around you that can encourage you to get it back?