Hope is often imagined as a private emotion or something that flickers quietly within us when our perceived possibility is threatened. But what if hope is not a solitary feeling at all? What if hope is something we build and sustain through our relationships with 'objects' of hope (e.g., people, places, and the sacred)? This is the insight behind my proposed Relational Theory of Hope, a new framework I am working on in a book that redefines hope as a relational process that links security and future orientation rather than as mere optimism or goal-setting. In this view, hope is born out of our sustained connections. It thrives when we…