Ted-ology: It’s the (lack of) Hope that Kills
If you’re like me, you have been eagerly awaiting the last season of Ted Lasso to drop and were absolutely delighted when the March 15th date was announced as the series as served as such a needed breath of fresh air from it’s inception. Of course, a re-watch was planned to align with the release and with that has stirred a few thoughts that have not easily come of late and as Eugene Peterson said:
You write because there's fire in your bones. You've got to do this whether anybody ever reads it or not.
So thanks for joining me these next few days in seeing if these fingers of mine still work.
Lately as many my friends and I catch up, there seems to be a common theme many of us are expressing - that being that life feels heavy in a way we’ve never quite experienced. This isn’t to say anything specific is going wrong but rather that we simply feel like the weight has become so noticeable and lasting as compared to other seasons of life we’ve gone through. Some of us have speculated that the weight was likely always there but that the collective trauma that the last 3 years likely catapulted it into a place where it no longer feels normative and often too much.
The first year of the pandemic put us all into a whirlwind and I’d suggest this was a reason why Ted Lasso became such a source of joy for some. As quickly as it became this refuge for it’s viewers, think pieces were written around the dangers of toxic-positivity found within. While these are a valid counterbalance to the caricature of the relentless optimism of Ted Lasso, many of these too were an exaggeration in the other direction - proving to be just as unhelpful.
In the last episode of season one, as Ted attempts to rally his team before the final game of the season, he says:
I’ve been hearing this phrase y’all got over here that I ain’t too crazy about. ‘It’s the hope that kills you.’ Y’all know that? I disagree, you know? I think it’s the lack of hope that comes and gets you. See, I believe in hope.
Then after the game, Ted begins to console his team after a devastating loss:
This is a sad moment right here for all of us. There is nothing I can say standing in front of y’all right now that can take that away. But please do me this favor, will ya? Lift your heads up and look around this locker room. Look at everybody else in here. I want you to be grateful that you are going through this sad moment with all these other folks because I promise you there is something worse out there than been sad - and that is being alone and being sad. Aint nobody in this room alone.
I believe the writers of the show did something brilliant with these two scenes that touches on that weight my friends and I have experienced.
There is a difference to a life oriented towards or around hope and a life lead by toxic positivity. I would argue, hope reminds us that the story is not over. Hope does not deny reality, but rather acknowledges the past, the present, the weight of life we are in and points us towards more. It reminds us of the full reality taking place rather than just what is directly in front of us. It reminds us that we are not alone. Whereas toxic positivity at it’s simplest wants to diminish or avoid completely the hardships of life and for folks to simply ‘put on a happy face’.
These past few years, we have experienced a loss of hope as we watched divisions grow deeper and more violent, many of our institutions have failed to live into the promises that they said they would strive towards or positioned themselves to be, the ugliness of individualism continues to take down communities, and many examples have all led us to feel that we are more alone than ever in navigating our lives.
We have been hit with the one-two punch of loss of hope and the loss of partners in seeking the path out during these trying times. This is the ‘lack of hope that comes and gets you’, it’s the thing that can kill us and it can be a slow and sneaky death.
So then what do we do?
Ted would suggest that we ‘be a goldfish’.
Ted: Sam, do you remember what animal has the shortest memory?
Sam: A goldfish.
Ted: That’s right, it’s a goldfish. Sam, what do you think we should all do once we get done being sad and/or angry about this situation?
Sam: I think we should all be a goldfish.
Ted: I agree, let’s be sad now. Let’s be sad together. And then we can be a gosh-darn goldfish.
It would be easy to see his prescription as simply forgetting the past and moving on. That certainly would be a move out of the toxic positivity playbook - but I don’t believe he is putting forth even from the moment he introduced that concept to Sam early in the season. Instead, I believe being a goldfish is more like:
We name reality.
We name the sadness, the anger, the weight.
We allow ourselves to remain in it as long as we need.
We remember that our past can influence the present and future, but it doesn’t determine it.
We do the hard work in connecting with others.
We choose to believe. We choose hope again and again and again. In new ways, with others, so that we might remind each other that a better world is possible together. Not because of the struggle, but in spite of it.
This life isn’t a straight path - nor is being a goldfish in the midst of it but it is moving forward one way or another.
So may we venture down it together to discover where hope may lead us.
Onward, forward. - Ted Lasso
For further reflection: