I feel a lot of anxiety right now about the future. Not really my future, but the future of everything. I look at the news regularly, and it makes me worry. I was in a conversation where everyone was just feeling bleak, that things were going to worse–not just big picture problems, but smaller things too. There are constant worries that things may not turn out, that life will get harder. That we are not okay.

I have seen a person get fired for doing the right thing and a person up for promotion despite previous wrongdoing. People seem to dispose of ethics and morals and helping others. Instead, they pursue what they can get away with, what is technically legal, and what makes them better off. And these people are often hypocrites: declaring their beliefs of integrity while secretly acting in other ways. I think many people are not aware of their own hypocrisy: they don’t realize that what they are doing is wrong.

But I do have hope.

And that hope is mainly rooted in the fact that there are still lots of good people fighting for good things.

The fights that we have with each other are not fights of good people versus evil people. Most people think they are good. Most people are trying to do the right thing. So our fight is not like a fantasy battle where there are heroes and villains and we want the heroes to win and the villains be eliminated.

Instead, people are often misinformed, deluded, and confused. Most people are not villains, but imperfect people who have lost their way. Though we should not trust misguided people with responsibility and power, we are not in a battle to eliminate them. Instead, we want to change the conversation. We want to bring more sense and reason. Instead of being afraid of each other, we want to be able to work together to find what we have in common and pursue better solutions.

The fight is one of persuasion and information. We fight to bring dark secrets into light. We fight to discover what is true. We fight to care for each other.

We don’t fight against each other. Instead, we fight against bad ideas. We fight against corruption. We fight for the disadvantaged. We fight for good outcomes.

And I will keep my hope. I will keep doing what I think is right and contribute to my family and my community. I will stay informed. I will encourage the people around me to keep living good lives, to be people of integrity. And I will try to live what I preach.