What do you think?
Hope in Small Doses
What is hope? Is it instinctive or learned? Is hope really necessary? Armed with questions, author Nikki Stern embarks on a journey to find the hope that had remained elusive for much of her life, especially following the death of her husband on 9/11. She discovers a version that flourishes without guarantees but with the promise of endless possibilities. Updated and with a new forward, HOPE IN SMALL DOSES remains by turns feisty, thoughtful and deeply moving.
168 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
Nikki Stern
18 books469 followersAuthor of both non-fiction and fiction, including five books in the Sam Tate Mystery Series (available in three formats). The newest of these is NATURAL CAUSES, out now.
I love book clubs, Pilates, and dogs. I dislike the passage of time, but it happens anyway.
I love book clubs, Pilates, and dogs. I dislike the passage of time, but it happens anyway.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 9, 2013
This book started a drumbeat in my head. A modest steady beat, compared to the kettle drums of Bruno's deep passion for truth or the snare of Spinoza's soaring encapsulization of god or the finger-cymbals of Thich Nhat Hanh hyper-compassion. But Nikki stays with me as a fellow suffering human, a chipper thinker who sees the rest of us, the ones who struggle to remember hope, as hopers who just need a few reminders. It's an adult book for adults, by a writer of clean prose who knows, really knows, how to make a case and illustrate ideas.
She's not a features or styles section writer. She's a thinker who has a real life story, who has feet on the same earth as the rest of us. Her charm is a gift, it infuses her writing — but without her ordinary humanity this concise book would fail. She convinces by strength of gentle arguments and credible visions, because she is just like us.
As a man with Parkinsons, this means everything to me. I don't have a second to waste on happy talk. I trust Nikki's eloquent, plain-spoken truth that hope is a choice and an opportunity, if we allow it one careful handful at a time.
She's not a features or styles section writer. She's a thinker who has a real life story, who has feet on the same earth as the rest of us. Her charm is a gift, it infuses her writing — but without her ordinary humanity this concise book would fail. She convinces by strength of gentle arguments and credible visions, because she is just like us.
As a man with Parkinsons, this means everything to me. I don't have a second to waste on happy talk. I trust Nikki's eloquent, plain-spoken truth that hope is a choice and an opportunity, if we allow it one careful handful at a time.
December 5, 2012
Watching the evolution of a writer is always an interesting study. After the critical success of "Because I Said So," Nikki tackled a topic more elusive than moral authority in "Hope in Small Doses."
"In most cases, hope still ties itself to certainty that something will occur as a result either of a higher power or the power of our minds." Stern, who is a humanist, approves the topic of hope from a very broad perspective, which engenders a great deal of respect from this progressive Christian as Stern takes a broad look at the intangible of hope.
Stern cites Michael Meade, a New Age spiritualist and founder of the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, who believes that hope can be the flip side of despair. "The problem," he says isn't simply that people lose hope, but that hope can turn into its opposite: despair."
This as Stern points out from Meade where the human inner resiliency can be a source of hope, even in the proverbial "darkest before dawn." She challenges his assertation, how can we "set goals without assuming to a favorable outcome?"
Yet this is indeed the place where hope enters the pictures.
Stern's book is a thorough examination of the topic from what Sartre has to say on the topic to use of visualization to engender one's own hopeful self.
Stern's writing (www.nikkistern.com) along with the masterful Cherie Siebert photographs (www.artsfish.com) -- which were amazingly taken on an iPhone) is personal on the subject, but also well-researched from those in the current literature. Stern has always demonstrated an ability to reach down into your soul and pull out emotions, yet she does this based on logic and reason.
I particularly enjoy her personal examples, such as watching a sunset over a beach next to a man huddled over his electronic device. When she asks him "isn't the sunset beautiful?" he mumbles that there will be another one tomorrow.
Stern reminds us that hope is understanding that there may not be another sunset tomorrow, but savoring the one we are in front of. Don't miss her volume on building the case for hope. Amy McVay Abbott, newspaper columnist and author of "The Luxury of Daydreams," WestBow Press 2011.” December 5, 2012
"In most cases, hope still ties itself to certainty that something will occur as a result either of a higher power or the power of our minds." Stern, who is a humanist, approves the topic of hope from a very broad perspective, which engenders a great deal of respect from this progressive Christian as Stern takes a broad look at the intangible of hope.
Stern cites Michael Meade, a New Age spiritualist and founder of the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, who believes that hope can be the flip side of despair. "The problem," he says isn't simply that people lose hope, but that hope can turn into its opposite: despair."
This as Stern points out from Meade where the human inner resiliency can be a source of hope, even in the proverbial "darkest before dawn." She challenges his assertation, how can we "set goals without assuming to a favorable outcome?"
Yet this is indeed the place where hope enters the pictures.
Stern's book is a thorough examination of the topic from what Sartre has to say on the topic to use of visualization to engender one's own hopeful self.
Stern's writing (www.nikkistern.com) along with the masterful Cherie Siebert photographs (www.artsfish.com) -- which were amazingly taken on an iPhone) is personal on the subject, but also well-researched from those in the current literature. Stern has always demonstrated an ability to reach down into your soul and pull out emotions, yet she does this based on logic and reason.
I particularly enjoy her personal examples, such as watching a sunset over a beach next to a man huddled over his electronic device. When she asks him "isn't the sunset beautiful?" he mumbles that there will be another one tomorrow.
Stern reminds us that hope is understanding that there may not be another sunset tomorrow, but savoring the one we are in front of. Don't miss her volume on building the case for hope. Amy McVay Abbott, newspaper columnist and author of "The Luxury of Daydreams," WestBow Press 2011.” December 5, 2012
November 29, 2017
Nuanced musings on the definition of hope drawing from other thinkers whose names and ideas are new to me. I've admired Stern since her Because I Say So: Moral Authority's Dangerous Appeal. Although she doesn't ossify her definition of what hope means to her, she gives the reader enough insight into her thought process so that we can ballpark her position and think through the issues for ourselves. There's also interactive content (though the Kindle version from Humanist Press seems to have deactivated the discussion board links when I attempted to connect in 2017).
She addresses hope in the context of the ever-present chance of personal tragedy (which she knows from the sudden death of her husband on Sept. 11) and the likelihood of mental and physical decline in advanced age (which she experienced in the deaths of her parents and her reckoning with her own illness). Although written in 2012 without any focus on politics, this passage seems prescient of how many Americans currently feel in the political situation of 2017:
She addresses hope in the context of the ever-present chance of personal tragedy (which she knows from the sudden death of her husband on Sept. 11) and the likelihood of mental and physical decline in advanced age (which she experienced in the deaths of her parents and her reckoning with her own illness). Although written in 2012 without any focus on politics, this passage seems prescient of how many Americans currently feel in the political situation of 2017:
"Optimism seems to be in hiding these days. In the United States in particular, the problem isn’t a surfeit of cheer, but the opposite — the dark cloud just above our heads, the black hole that opens beneath our feet. We’re in a dark place. Call it apathy, ennui, melancholia, despair, or the blues (I used to call it the ‘grays’). Whatever it is, it’s anything but upbeat."
April 3, 2013
There are many reasons to read this book. First and foremost, it's the opportunity look at hope through different lenses. Nikki takes you on journey of discovery, which opens your eyes and your mind.
It would easy to presume that a book with such a title is just another feel good pop psychology tome. Not a chance. She uses reason to ask some serious questions. Her life experience, and her own personal journey offer the reader some concrete examples why hope is not overrated.
Nikki engages the reader and speakers to the reader on their level. If you appreciate common sense and rational thought, spend the time with Nikki. It is worth it.
It would easy to presume that a book with such a title is just another feel good pop psychology tome. Not a chance. She uses reason to ask some serious questions. Her life experience, and her own personal journey offer the reader some concrete examples why hope is not overrated.
Nikki engages the reader and speakers to the reader on their level. If you appreciate common sense and rational thought, spend the time with Nikki. It is worth it.
August 16, 2012
In one chapter of his great “The magic of reality”, Richard Dawkins discusses the reasons why bad things happen. Contrary to a popular belief that we “attract” things according to the way we think about them (“She got sick because she is a very negative person!”), Dawkins recurs to what we could call a more mundane (and real) way to see life: bad things happen because things happen. Good things also happen because of that.
Some people are absolutely afraid of the idea that life is random, which means that we are subject to good and bad things regardless of how positive or negative we are. But that doesn’t mean that we all should get desperate and think that life is meaningless.
“S… happens. Life is random. Great. What are we suppose to do with that information?” is the question that is discussed in the excellent “Hope in small doses”, written by Nikki Stern. Part of the book is devoted to explaining how we can live a meaningful life in a world that sometimes surprises us. And, instead of potential despair and sadness, Nikki says that we can enjoy our lives and set goals that allow us to feel purposeful.
It’s very difficult for a person to live without purposes or goals. These purposes, however, should be flexible, considering that in some occasions things don’t happen the way we would like them to. We may not have the job of our dreams, or the house we always wanted to live in. Our life conditions may not be the best. Unexpectedly, we may lose a relative, a spouse, a close friend. But we go on, adjusting our lives and some of our goals according to the things that happen to us.
“We may not be able to guarantee a happy ending for ourselves or for the mankind as a whole, but we can use whatever talents we have in the pursuit of the best possible outcome”, writes Nikki. And the best possible outcome is something we should bear in mind in all circumstances we face in life. Sometimes, the best possible outcome was not part of our greatest plans, but it doesn’t mean that the possible outcome is something bad or undesirable.
Nikki concludes: “what I want to do is share my conviction that hope and happiness are possible without certainty… uncertainty gives me permission to stay open to possibility”.
Some people are absolutely afraid of the idea that life is random, which means that we are subject to good and bad things regardless of how positive or negative we are. But that doesn’t mean that we all should get desperate and think that life is meaningless.
“S… happens. Life is random. Great. What are we suppose to do with that information?” is the question that is discussed in the excellent “Hope in small doses”, written by Nikki Stern. Part of the book is devoted to explaining how we can live a meaningful life in a world that sometimes surprises us. And, instead of potential despair and sadness, Nikki says that we can enjoy our lives and set goals that allow us to feel purposeful.
It’s very difficult for a person to live without purposes or goals. These purposes, however, should be flexible, considering that in some occasions things don’t happen the way we would like them to. We may not have the job of our dreams, or the house we always wanted to live in. Our life conditions may not be the best. Unexpectedly, we may lose a relative, a spouse, a close friend. But we go on, adjusting our lives and some of our goals according to the things that happen to us.
“We may not be able to guarantee a happy ending for ourselves or for the mankind as a whole, but we can use whatever talents we have in the pursuit of the best possible outcome”, writes Nikki. And the best possible outcome is something we should bear in mind in all circumstances we face in life. Sometimes, the best possible outcome was not part of our greatest plans, but it doesn’t mean that the possible outcome is something bad or undesirable.
Nikki concludes: “what I want to do is share my conviction that hope and happiness are possible without certainty… uncertainty gives me permission to stay open to possibility”.
September 19, 2012
With Hope in Small Doses, Nikki Stern hopes, no pun intended, to establish a concept of Hope in functional, reasonable, working terms. What she calls a sort of managed hope, is carefully distanced from passive, faith based belief and other wishful thinking expecting to achieve untenable outcomes dependent, perhaps, on the beneficence of an external source.
Stern explores hope through a sweeping survey of definition, personal and social anecdote, and historical perspectives. From Hesiod, Euripides, Epictetus and Lucretius, through Shakespeare, Dickenson, Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre, rounding it out with contemporary thinkers in fields of neuroscience, social philosophy, positive psychology, and its detractors.
As I was reading, I was waiting for the prescription and meaning of “small doses.” It never came. A dose might imply ‘a small amount,’ yet I didn’t find hope taken in small amounts as an offering in her manifesto. I think rather, Stern is discussing a refined scope or degree of hope, primarily to induce and assuage acceptance in concepts of faith and hope within a secular, humanist audience. Nowhere does Stern suggest that the goals of hope, nor the meaning or purpose in one’s life, nor the degree of pain or the frailty in old age, that one should wish for be smaller than any other person might hope for – within reason, but rather that hope (verb) and the path of pursuing that hope (noun) is a rational and valuable approach to life and meaning and purpose.
If there is anything small in this prescription of hope it is that hope and one’s pursuit of hope and happiness need to be flexible, and perhaps constrained by an awareness and acceptance of life’s underlying uncertainty, and sometimes harsh reality that ‘shit happens.’ Hoping to outrun or overcome reality is an unjustified, inappropriate degree of hope.
This was an enjoyable exploration of the concept of hope. Stern’s writing is well paced and easy to enjoy. Well referenced.
Stern explores hope through a sweeping survey of definition, personal and social anecdote, and historical perspectives. From Hesiod, Euripides, Epictetus and Lucretius, through Shakespeare, Dickenson, Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre, rounding it out with contemporary thinkers in fields of neuroscience, social philosophy, positive psychology, and its detractors.
As I was reading, I was waiting for the prescription and meaning of “small doses.” It never came. A dose might imply ‘a small amount,’ yet I didn’t find hope taken in small amounts as an offering in her manifesto. I think rather, Stern is discussing a refined scope or degree of hope, primarily to induce and assuage acceptance in concepts of faith and hope within a secular, humanist audience. Nowhere does Stern suggest that the goals of hope, nor the meaning or purpose in one’s life, nor the degree of pain or the frailty in old age, that one should wish for be smaller than any other person might hope for – within reason, but rather that hope (verb) and the path of pursuing that hope (noun) is a rational and valuable approach to life and meaning and purpose.
If there is anything small in this prescription of hope it is that hope and one’s pursuit of hope and happiness need to be flexible, and perhaps constrained by an awareness and acceptance of life’s underlying uncertainty, and sometimes harsh reality that ‘shit happens.’ Hoping to outrun or overcome reality is an unjustified, inappropriate degree of hope.
This was an enjoyable exploration of the concept of hope. Stern’s writing is well paced and easy to enjoy. Well referenced.
May 30, 2013
"Any workable form of hope has to divest itself from the twin anchors of expectation and certainty in order to stay strong and flexible in the face of life's obstacles."
Nikki Stern is intimately familiar with the pain of obstacles, of the unpredictable and uncertain, having lost her husband in the unforeseeable 9/11 attack, and then both her parents in quick succession. She writes from the experience of her own quest for hope, drawing meaningfully from her own life and from many fields of research and thought to give us a multi-disciplinary yet personal approach to the subject of hope. Quoting philosophers, social commentators and artists, drawing from the research of scientists, neurologists, and psychologists, this very thought-provoking work also doubles as a compendium of very interesting and relevant references; doorways to further investigation.
Shining a light on hope from all angles, and test driving ideas with eloquence and wit, Nikki distills for us a "workable hope", a hope "that allows critical inquiry, accommodates the reality of uncertainty, unpredictability, free of doctrine, that allows for the unknowable."
Despite the key role hope has played in my own life, I have never examined it deeply. Certainly not the way Nikki Stern has. Accompanying Nikki on her journey of exploration has deepened and broadened my own appreciation of the many varieties of hope, and the most useful way of perceiving, relating to and engaging it. "Hope is a powerful force, capable of blinding or inspiring us, depending on our understanding of its powers and limitations." By expanding my understanding of its powers and limitations, Nikki has empowered me to use it well.
Nikki Stern is intimately familiar with the pain of obstacles, of the unpredictable and uncertain, having lost her husband in the unforeseeable 9/11 attack, and then both her parents in quick succession. She writes from the experience of her own quest for hope, drawing meaningfully from her own life and from many fields of research and thought to give us a multi-disciplinary yet personal approach to the subject of hope. Quoting philosophers, social commentators and artists, drawing from the research of scientists, neurologists, and psychologists, this very thought-provoking work also doubles as a compendium of very interesting and relevant references; doorways to further investigation.
Shining a light on hope from all angles, and test driving ideas with eloquence and wit, Nikki distills for us a "workable hope", a hope "that allows critical inquiry, accommodates the reality of uncertainty, unpredictability, free of doctrine, that allows for the unknowable."
Despite the key role hope has played in my own life, I have never examined it deeply. Certainly not the way Nikki Stern has. Accompanying Nikki on her journey of exploration has deepened and broadened my own appreciation of the many varieties of hope, and the most useful way of perceiving, relating to and engaging it. "Hope is a powerful force, capable of blinding or inspiring us, depending on our understanding of its powers and limitations." By expanding my understanding of its powers and limitations, Nikki has empowered me to use it well.
July 25, 2013
Having experienced unimaginable loss, author Nikki Stern examines the relationship between "Hope" and life. Miraculously, Stern steers clear of sentimentality, and anger, in order to deliver a fascinating read, packed with insight. Hope In Small Doses transforms intellectual and philosophical examination into approachable, highly engaging, and often deeply moving material. Stern's voice reveals a delicious sense of humour which tempers her many complex observations to perfection! When I'm not reading Hope In Small Doses, I'm thinking about Hope in Small Doses, and I find myself embracing this refreshingly cogent approach to living a contented life.
December 22, 2013
Non-fiction is my favorite genre; I know that's weird most people like fiction. Nikki Stern's book is one great example of why I like non-fiction. Unlike fiction which gives voice to another character (unless it is first person), Nikki's voice is clear and penetrating and makes me think.
While I suspect we have more in common that we do not in common, we do have theological differences.
She has opened my mind to many different ways of thinking and I appreciate that.
Well done, Ms. Stern.
While I suspect we have more in common that we do not in common, we do have theological differences.
She has opened my mind to many different ways of thinking and I appreciate that.
Well done, Ms. Stern.
January 16, 2016
Though this is a slight book coming in just around 130 pages, it wasn't a quick read for me because every section had me trying to wrap my head around another deep thought on the topic of hope and its relationship with faith and religion, happiness and expectations. What I thought at first was a simple concept-- hope-- turns out to be quite nuanced and thought-provoking, and I appreciated the author's openly non-deistic perspective.
July 25, 2012
For every action there is a reaction. being hopeful is a most positive one you can have. Hope comes in many forms and is always worth seeking out.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews