I'm Still an Optimist
A part of being in your 20s is seeing the world for what it is. We are economically fucked as a generation. Social Security has solvency risks, the world is increasingly multipolar, and jobs are being erased by AI. We realized our parents are not the perfect humans we thought they were. Higher education is being attacked. The government is corrupt. We start senseless wars. No wonder so many people in their 20s have lost hope.
This year I turned 20 and it was a year where I saw the ugliness of the world. We witness the atrophy of our political systems, the death of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti by ICE, the release of 3.5 million documents (out of 6 million) in the Epstein files, a war in Iran, the invasion of Venezuela, and far more. Meanwhile, this year — far more than the previous 4 years — has become dominated by new AI technologies. The job market, while making a slight bounce back, is in shambles and young people, people I know at Harvard, are struggling to find jobs. It’s not good to be 20 years old right now. Maybe, if you were a little older, you could have joined OpenAI and Anthropic and made tens of millions when they IPOed but now it’s a little too late.
But I can’t stop being an optimist. I’m not going to argue techno-optimism — that is blasphemy to the millions of Americans and bilions in the world who may never have a vote in a world they have no control in. I’m so optimistic because life is so miraculous.
Everyday is a day of possibilities: Someone you might meet at a nearby cafe, a quote that sticks with you in a book, or an event that teaches you patience. I told myself recently to at least climb a hill on Mount Everest. What I mean is that the world won’t always conform to you and your dreams. You will fail. You might never accomplish your dreams. But perhaps, that day you climb the hill on Mount Everest, you will glimpse at the gentle way the snow falls and the mist of clouds around the sun and your heart will soften — soften in that you might realize that you wouldn’t be any much happier at the summit than the hill, and that you have seen the beauty of the world in its purest form.
Matt Damon once said in an interview that he was lucky to have his ‘Oscar Moment’: Not in the typical, “I worked so hard for this so I’m happy” mentality but the “Wow, this shit is meaningless” mentality. He realized that if he hadn’t won the Oscar early on, he would be chasing this award for the rest of his life. I imagine that Damon is 80 years old and on his 64th Oscar showing, he wins the award. He walks on stage, smiling because it was his life’s work to win an Oscar, and he delivers one of the best speeches in Oscar history. The next day, Damon wakes up and nothing is different. His emotions, all the suffering and happiness, are still there; the pain and stifness in his joints not gone. The award didn’t mean anything, the movie did: The mentality to chase your dreams, to take a risk, to live out carpe diem.
When my Dad came to America from China, he became an academic. He received three masters and then, much later, studied for a financial risk management certification. He earned good money, but the money always went to investments, education, or necessities. It was rarely spent on conveinences of the modern world. His celluar service is so bad that his texts don’t send when he texts me that he is at Harvard. The truth is my father never got to live his dream: He always wanted to do something great — to bring justice to those who deserved it as he said. And while he has time left, I fear he may never accomplish what he wanted to do. Life is short and he spent his life sacrificing for me. He was an immigrant: He didn’t have the time to both pursue his dreams and help me, he had to choose one so he choose me.
His optimism no longer became about his life but about mine. He didn’t dream of what he could for the world, but what I could do for the world. I’m humbled to be a part of his dream.
I believe optimism is more enduring when it is beyond the self. Look around. A pastor once visited Harvard and told me: “When I look down at my phone and go on social media, I’m immersed in this world that is all about me. It’s small and crowded. But when I look outside and to God, I see how big the world is, much larger and grander than me.” Without a doubt, Matt Damon doesn’t find optimism through a trophy, he finds it through the grander ideas of freedom and ambition. When my father thinks about his dreams, he will see it being lived through me. When we think only about ourselves, optimism becomes an impossible task because it becomes yourself versus a fallen world. When we think about optimism through others, it’s our people, our virtues, and our ideas versus the world.
The greatest form of optimism is not hope in the world, it is more humble. It is living out that every moment is a gift — in suffering, in abundance, in glory, in sadness. Seneca once wrote to Lucilius about honorable friends: Do you understand now how much easier it is to conquer a whole tribe than to conquer one man? He writes this because he understands that a man who can control his emotions and desires and live in the moment is infalliable compared to the fragility of social institutions. These people — hopefully, you and me — have true optimism because we know that no man can destroy our soul. And if we have our soul, we can lose everything in this world and be okay.