BIG Questions Institute Update

September 25, 2025, No. 191 (Read Online)​

Worried About the World? Try Urgent Optimism

Have you noticed how talking about “hope” or “optimism” these days sort of sounds … dumb, naive, or out of touch? The term “hopium” gets thrown around cynically, as if hope is an opiate for those who are fooling themselves. I get it. When I read the news, each day seems darker and more cruel.
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But when I am in community with caring people doing good work and service, it doesn’t feel like hopium at all. For me, the farther away I get from thoughtful people taking action in their communities (and yes, in their schools) around causes they care about, the sadder I get. The greater contact I have, the more hopeful I feel. In other words, I need to look up from doomscrolling, and look for the helpers.

Indeed, as the troubles of the world mount, a powerful strategy lies in rooting thoughts and actions in what futurist Jane McGonigal terms urgent optimism.
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Urgent optimism involves cultivating mental flexibility, which is the ability to believe that things can change for the better, even when this seems far from what’s happening now. Over the past few weeks, as I’ve been on the road, I’ve gotten to witness so much urgent optimism in action, like:

• Teachers and long-time staff at UNIS Hanoi collectively imagining their hopes for the future of the school, then having an opportunity to work on the tangible steps for getting there.

• Parents at the Mulgrave School engaging in meaningful conversations with fellow parents and staff members, many of whom they’ve never talked to before, to consider how they can support their school and one another in becoming good ancestors - to shape the future together.
• Board Chairs and Heads of School, from Shanghai to Chicago, slowing down to reflect together on how they can more clearly align their expectations toward a shared understanding of success and support.

These experiences were particularly hope-building because they showed how as diverse and disparate individuals, we can train our imaginations to work together - in ways that are at once chaotic, loud, difficult, harmonious, and energizing. McMonigal identifies three “mini-mindsets” to arrive at urgent optimism:

1. Focus on the opportunity to rethink and reinvent. Spend actual time getting ready for the futures that feel strange and unfamiliar, rather than what is similar to today. Try to imagine how the future will be different. In our Dream Summits we often offer the prompt, “What if we got it right?!” to imagine new scenarios.
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2. Use positive and shadow imagination. Imagine both good outcomes and unsavory ones. This is a tool of strategic foresight - where there is an honest confrontation of the polarities of outcomes - and you get better at thinking of multiple truths at once. As futurists have found, seeing risks more clearly and articulating your anxieties around the unknown can actually lend to feelings of hopeFULness. This technique builds hope because you’re not only focusing on what could go wrong, but you’re also exposing yourself to novel solutions and bold innovations.
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3. Look for actionable ways to increase your ability to shape the future. Begin to gain a sense of control and agency to directly influence the future by taking intentional action today. This could come from identifying solutions and technologies that can excite you and contribute to positive outcomes, in anything from the way you get to work or what you consume, or how you practice collective imagination with friends and colleagues.

Urgent Optimism is not:

• Denial: It doesn't ignore or deny the severity of problems, such as the climate crisis, but confronts them with a plan for solutions. This is a close cousin to toxic positivity - as in “good vibes only” - which denies the complexity of a situation and the emotions that go with it.
• Passive Optimism: Urgent optimism moves beyond simply waiting for things to get better, requiring active and intentional effort to make a positive impact.
• Just Worry: By combining worry with an action-oriented outlook, urgent optimism channels problem identification into productive solutions rather than paralyzing anxiety.

Building the imagination and empathy muscles that result from effort around the three mini-mindsets can help us get closer toward this hopeful disposition. This also gets to “agency,” a goal of most schools and education systems around the world. As a prompt with colleagues, consider asking an open-ended question like “In what ways could a disposition of urgent optimism help seed authentic agency across all learners and build actual hope for a brighter future?”

Leave quiet space for reflection and see where your personal or collective imagination takes you. What gives you hope today?

With urgent optimism,

Homa

Learn (and Partner!) With BQI

Are you ready to work on a new strategic plan for your school? Does your Board or Senior Leadership Team need up-skilling or alignment on goal-setting? Are you striving to build a more joyful, welcoming, futures-embracing culture? Or do you need coaching to reach your next professional milestone? How about implementing a new AI approach?

We love accompanying schools and leaders through their unique challenges.

Our team of Kathleen Naglee, Rachael Thrash, and Homa Tavangar will be showing up at lots of professional events in the coming months. Please connect if you'll be at any, such as:

• ​NESA Leadership Conference - Deep dive on the Pedagogy of Hope for Regenerative Leadership, and support to the Good Governance professional strand.
• ​EARCOS Leadership Conference - New Skills, Literacies, and Dispositions for Leading Through Liminal Times, and an Exploration of the 12 Big Questions

Contact Homa Tavangar: homa@bigquestions.institute or Kathleen Naglee: kathleen@bigquestions.institute to schedule an exploratory call.