The Cost of Believing Things Will Be Better in the Future

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the belief that things will be better in the future.

You might have ended 2025 holding on to the hope that the new year would bring some relief.

A sense of reset.

A little breathing room.

And then...January arrived.

If you’re an empathetic, caring person, watching what’s happening in our country right now can feel deeply unsettling.

And that weight isn't easily compartmentalized.

It affects your energy, your focus, and how you show up in your own life.

That might look like neglecting your health.

Or feeling frozen and overwhelmed.

Or disengaging altogether because it feels like too much.

None of that means you don’t care.

It just means you’re human.

And when things feel heavy or unsafe, many of us fall into the mindset that “things will be better in the future.”

When the dust settles.

When someone else fixes things.

When this phase passes.

But there's a problem with this belief.

Not because it's bad to hope.

But because of how that hope can shape our behavior.

Because when we’re waiting for a better future, one of two things usually happens:

Either we avoid taking action now,

Because we’re waiting for the “right” time or trusting that things will work themselves out.

OR we make plans that only work in an ideal version of life,

One where the world isn’t burning and nothing unexpected happens.

Neither of those actually helps us. Or anyone else.

Here’s the hard truth most of us don’t want to sit with for long:

There is no future where everything is resolved.

There will always be injustice.

There will always be conflict.

There will always be people at risk, power dynamics at play, and systems that need changing.

That doesn’t mean nothing matters or that there's no point in trying to make things better.

It means waiting around for a problem-free world is not an option.

Because a problem-free world will never exist.

And yet, change is still worth striving for.

Values-driven behavior isn't motivated by the belief that you can fix everything or that the future will be perfect one day.

It's motivated by the understanding that not acting is the one thing that guarantees nothing changes.

And it's rooted in the desire for your actions to reflect what you say is important to you, even when that's unpopular, uncomfortable, or scary.

Sometimes that action is taking care of your body so you have the capacity to show up.

Sometimes it’s setting boundaries so you don’t numb out or burn out.

Sometimes it’s speaking up, donating, supporting, organizing, checking in on someone, or refusing to look away.

This is where personal responsibility and collective responsibility meet.

So instead of asking, “When will things be better?”

A more helpful question to consider is:

“What can I do today that aligns with the kind of woman I want to be and the kind of world I want to live in?”

Because choosing to act in alignment with your values, even in the middle of chaos, is how a better future becomes something real, not just something we hope for.