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Hope Is Not a Feeling

2026-01-06 · letter vlog · John · 4:49 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: heavy topic

Prompted by a friend's email about hope, John recalls the Catholic Engaged Encounter he and Sarah attended, where a priest taught that love is a decision, and argues that hope, like love, is not only a feeling but a demanding, repeated decision and practice that can withstand suffering, makes good outcomes likelier, and must be chosen especially when the feeling is distant.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Vlogbrothers turns 19, John's marriage is older, and a friend's email about hope

  • ★★ John notes Vlogbrothers turned 19 last week (week of 29 December 2025), making the project older than the iPhone or a future AFC Wimbledon superstar (name unclear). (playful) — 00:00:00 · Vlogbrothers, AFC Wimbledon
  • ★★ John says his marriage is older than Vlogbrothers, predating their videos by about seven months. — 00:00:00 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★ John recently got an email about hope from a friend going through absolute hell, which took him back to when he and Sarah were engaged. — 00:00:00 · Sarah Urist Green, hope

00:00:29 — The Catholic Engaged Encounter weekend and the priest's 'love is a decision'

  • ★★ Because Sarah's parents wanted a Catholic church wedding, John and Sarah went to a Catholic Engaged Encounter, held at a nunnery in rural Alabama. — 00:00:29 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★ John recalls, as one of the funny parts, being taught that birth control is unnecessary and the rhythm method totally works by a couple then pregnant with their fourth child. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ After months of dread, John found most of the encounter super helpful, and decades later he and Sarah still use much of what they learned that weekend. — 00:00:58 · Sarah Urist Green

  • ★★★ John recalls the priest leading the weekend repeating that love is not a feeling but a decision, an idea that stuck with him though he partly disagreed. — 00:00:58

    “love is not a feeling love is a decision”

00:01:27 — Love and hope as decisions and practices, not only feelings; nihilism as the easy choice; deciding on hope for the friend going through hell

  • ★★★ As a sentimentalist, John argues love is both a feeling and a decision: feelings come and go as decisions don't, and as a decision love involves sacrifices and compromises. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ John says love has a reputation for being easy and simple, kittens and rainbows, but is far more complicated and multitudinous. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ John argues hope is like love: both seem easy but are demanding, and hope is not just a feeling of encouragement but a decision and a practice. — 00:01:56 · hope
  • ★★ For John, simple and easy varieties of hope do not withstand the reality of human suffering, so there is no point to them. — 00:02:26 · hope

  • ★★★ John defines hope as a decision made over and over to believe that the world and those in it matter, and that there is cause to believe things can get better. — 00:02:26 · hope

    “hope is a decision that one has to make over and over again”

  • ★★★ John rejects the view that serious people embrace nihilism: nihilism is the easy choice, because then nothing you do matters, while durable hope is harder and more nuanced. — 00:02:55 · hope

  • ★★ John says it is hard but possible to find a hope that withstands the reality that children die and that people hurt each other profoundly. — 00:02:55 · hope
  • ★★ Practically, John thinks hope is the correct call: it is not always rewarded, but there is always the possibility that it will be. — 00:03:24 · hope
  • ★★★ John notes the circular fact that deciding on a hopeful worldview makes hopeful outcomes likelier: believing the world is worth saving makes reducing under-five deaths likelier. — 00:03:24 · hope, child mortality
  • ★★ If nothing and no one mattered, John says, there would be no point in reducing child mortality or in writing books meant to console or encourage readers. — 00:03:53 · child mortality
  • ★★★ John concludes hope is not only a feeling but also a good decision, a commitment that must be made continuously and so a practice. — 00:03:53 · hope
  • ★★ John does not know what to say to his friend going through hell; the old line about keeping going through hell has some wisdom. (unsure) — 00:04:23

  • ★★★ What John really thinks is that we have to decide on hope, especially when the feeling of hope is distant. — 00:04:23 · hope

    “we have to decide on hope, especially when the feeling of hope is distant”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Catholic Engaged Encounter · hope · love

Also: AFC Wimbledon · Alabama · Catholic Church · child mortality · iPhone · Junior · nihilism · Sarah Urist Green

Also centred on love: I Love My Brother · Happy Esther Day! · Lives Made of Love - Esther Day 2016 · Two Love Stories · Uncertain and Afraid · you're bundled up now? wait till you get older.

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2026-01-09 · There is Only One Source of Value (Hank) — continues — “In your video this week, you were talking about how believing in a hopeful worldview actually makes it more likely that the hopeful stuff will come to pass.” (00:00:00)