If you feel hopeless at times, you’re not alone.

It’s hard to keep working for positive change. At our People’s History event, we saw many role models of people who maintained hope during tough times — heroes who won so many important victories, like a 40-hour work week, legal contraception, the right to vote.

Howard Zinn says:

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future.

The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

How do YOU keep your spirits up during tough times? Post your thoughts in the comments below.