Nebraska Celebrates the International Day of Hope!

The International Day of Hope.

Hope, in the most general sense, is a belief about the nature of the world that centers around the idea that the future can be better, while optimism is the belief that the future will be better. Belief hope and practical hope are related but distinct: “[Practical] hope is a perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways,” according to C.R (Rick) Snyder. Practical hope is born through mental playfulness on the stage of the imagination.

Saturday July 12, 2025 from 10am-12pm
Constellation Studios
2055 O St, Lincoln, NE 68510
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Free and open to the public. All are welcome.

• 10:00-10:15am Karen Kunc – hope themed printmaking (hands on activity)
• 10:15-10:30am Andrew Hanna – Designing a Life and Culture of Hope
• 10:30-10:45am Nick Hernandez – Practical Hope Circles
• 10:45-11:00am Brandon McWilliams and Lawrence Gardiner in conversation – Strengths and Hope
• 11:00-11:15am Nicki Hanseling – Hope Squads
• 11:15-11:30am Music by Orion Walsh
• 11:30-11:45am Britta Tollefsrud, MA LIMHP – Cultivating Hope in Difficult Times
• 11:45am-12:00pm Karen Kunc – hope themed printmaking (hands on activity)

The celebrations continue later in both Lincoln and Omaha:

Saturday July 12, 2025 from 5-8pm
LUX Center for the Arts
2601 N 48th St, Lincoln, NE 68504
The Art of Hope Through Play
Free and open to the public. All are welcome.

Saturday July 12, 2025 from 1-5pm
Great Plains Black History Museum
2221 N 24th St, Omaha, NE 68110
1:00-5:00 Eric Ewing – The History of Positive Change is a Foundation for Hope Today (Guided Tour)
Free and open to the public (donations appreciated)!

From: www.un.org/en/observances/hope-day
“The declaration of the International Day of Hope…calls on Member States, regional and international bodies, civil society, and individuals to cultivate environments where hope can thrive. Hope is a powerful force for both personal recovery and collective resilience. It fosters social trust, encourages civic participation, reduces polarization, and strengthens a shared sense of identity. Psychologist C. R. Snyder defines hope as a combination of agency and pathways thinking—in other words, the motivation to pursue goals and the perceived ability to find ways to achieve them.”

More About Hope:
Hope is a belief about the nature of the world that centers around the idea that the future can be better. Optimism is the belief that the future will be better. Hope as a belief could still be relevant even if the world was free of suffering, e.g., the world could continue to become more curious, creative, friendly, and playful even if there was no more disease or violence. The hope science field uses the word ‘hope’ to refer to goals thinking, pathways thinking and agency. We use the term ‘hope’ to refer to the everyday notion of hope as the belief that tomorrow can be better, and use the term ‘practical hope’ to refer to the construct developed by hope researchers. Credit goes to Jeff Slater for coining the term ‘practical hope.’ Goals thinking is the ability to envision meaningful goals. Pathways thinking is the ability to envision initial routes to our goals and the ability to formulate new paths as insurmountable obstacles arise along the initial routes. Agency (willpower) is the sense of being in control of one’s actions and having the ability to influence one’s environment now and into the future. Agency is composed of beliefs such as ‘I can make my life be better’ and ‘I can contribute to making the world a better place,’ and is accompanied by memories of past goal pursuits and accomplishments, and habits around putting these beliefs into practice.

Waxing Philosophically About Practical Hope:
Values are a source of infinite practical hope because an innumerable number of goals can be derived from any particular value. Practical hope is a form of playfulness as the development of goals thinking and pathways thinking takes place in the play of the imagination. Creativity is a special form of practical hope that results in the expansion of our collective capabilities.

Hope Science Quotes:

“Hope isn’t a denial of what is, but a belief that the current situation is not all that can be. You can recognize something’s wrong, but also that it’s not the end of the story.” ~Thema Bryant
“Hope is a perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.” ~C.R, (Rick) Snyder
“Hope is the sum of the mental willpower and waypower that you have for your goals” ~C.R (Rick) Snyder

Hope Quotes:

“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Art is the highest form of hope.” ~Gerhard Richter
“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All [people] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
“There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. If one could but recall his vision by some sort of sign. It was in this hope that the arts were invented. Sign-posts on the way to what may be.” ~Robert Henri
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Musings on Hope:

Values are a source of infinite practical hope because an innumerable number of goals can be derived from any particular value. Practical hope is a form of playfulness as the development of goals thinking and pathways thinking takes place in the play of the imagination. Creativity is a special form of practical hope that results in the expansion of our collective capabilities.

Nebraska is aesthetically inscribed with hope thanks to the iconography of the philosopher, Hartley Burr Alexander. Nebraska ranks 9th in wellbeing as a state. Omaha ranks 12th, and Lincoln ranks 6th in terms of wellbeing nationally at the city level.

Left: SPES (hope) is on a door at the Joslyn Museum (Omaha, NE).
Middle: The Sower represents generativity, a hope-based virtue, and is casting seeds of hope to the west from atop the Nebraska State Capitol (Lincoln, NE).
Right: the virtue HOPE is located to the west on the ceiling of the rotunda in the Nebraska State Capitol (Lincoln, NE).