There are countless stories of survival through hope: Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, chronicling his survival of the Nazi death camps, may be the best known.
In Winning Life's Toughest Battles, Dr. Julius Segal, who studied and counseled returning Vietnam prisoners of war, wrote that, of the over 500 POW's, there was only 1 suicide. He attributes their survival to hope, and the bond of community while in captivity. And there are countless other stories, large and small.
Hope is a capacity which exists in everyone, why I believe, to paraphrase, "Hope springs internal."
"An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." -- Howard Zinn
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