July 16, 2026

The Difficulty Is The Point

The object of hope is a future good, arduous but possible to obtain, whether by one's own power, or by the help of others.

Thomas Aquinas wrote this in the Summa Theologica, his systematic examination of the human passions, composed during years of relentless teaching, writing, and travel between Paris, Rome, and Naples. He insists that hope is never aimed at something easy or already secured — if the good were simple to reach, we would call it desire, not hope. Aquinas built his life's work knowing it might remain unfinished, laboring anyway toward something arduous but possible. His definition reframes resilience: the very difficulty of a goal is what makes hope necessary, not a reason to abandon it.