A Collection of Beauty and Optimism

Hello, wonderful climate optimist community. I have entered a period of radical rest, for reasons I will soon share, that has forced me into a state of surrendering cessation. Not for long, but for a little while.

So in the meantime, I wanted to send this collection of beauty and optimism that I’ve come across over the years, a few of my favorite collections of words that have picked me up in times of uncertainty and allowed me to keep going.

I hope they will bring some deeper wisdom and needed reflection to your day. And who knows, maybe some of these words will change your life forever. I sure know they’ve changed mine.

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Words That Transform - A Collection

1. Even a wounded world is feeding us.

   Even a wounded world holds us,

   giving us moments of wonder and joy.

   I choose joy over despair.

   Not because I have my head in the sand,

   but because joy is what the earth gives me daily

   and I must return the gift.

   — Robin Wall Kimmerer

2. Nature doesn’t have resources, it has sources. It’s our job to make them into resources, again, and again, and again.

   — William McDonough

3. “The thing about our climate is that you can either be overwhelmed by the complexity of the problem or fall in love with the creativity of the solutions.”

   — Mary Heglar

4. A radical optimist is not someone with a “Pollyanna” view of the world, but one who recognizes we can and must hold pain and possibility at the same time in order to create space for healing and change.

   — Radical Optimism Collective

5. “You have to act as if it were

   possible to radically transform

   the world. And you have to do it

   all the time.”

   — Angela Davis

6. Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

   — Mary Oliver

7. Don’t Hesitate

   If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
   don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
   of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
   to be. We are not wise, and not very often
   kind. And much can never be redeemed.
   Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
   is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
   something happens better than all the riches
   or power in the world. It could be anything,
   but very likely you notice it in the instant
   when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
   Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
   of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

   — Mary Oliver

8. We must expand our hearts and minds, begin to question everything, and dare to dream. Because maybe change isn’t so bad. Maybe change means things could be even better, better in the most unimaginable ways.

   — The Climate Optimist Handbook

9. To be truly radical is to make hope possible, not despair convincing.

   — Raymond Williams

10. “There’s a hidden secret in the despair paradox. Going down the depths of despair can also bring healing.… The more we let death—even the threats of extinction—into our souls, the more we can appreciate the current vibrant vitality of life in its many forms. And we may even be transformed by it.”

    — Per Espen Stoknes

11. “Our sadness, anger, anxiety, and even feelings of hopelessness and depression—when skillfully worked with—can be sane, adaptive responses to climate distress.”

    — Jack Adam Weber

12. Giving up just because it is hard right now is not viable; history provides reasonable assurance that doing so would forgo many better things that are yet to come.

    — Britt Wray, Gen Dread

13. “Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved.”

    — Jane Goodall