How to Find Your Purpose (W/ Yara Shahidi) | How to Be a Better Human | TED

I identify as an optimist, but my understanding of optimism came through lived experience, particularly during my teenage years. At eighteen, I felt extremely hopeful—I had just gained the civic duty of voting and felt energized by my generation's potential. But realizing how complicated the civic process and world events actually are was immediately followed by an era of questioning: what am I doing, can I change anything, what really has impact?Going to college actually exacerbated these feelings because I spent so much time in critique mode. In social sciences, you spend all day reading and critiquing, saying "I would have done this better" or "I wonder why they didn't consider this alternative." My era of pessimism was thankfully short-lived, but I learned something crucial: I got nothing done during that time.What I realized is that even being hopeful and slightly naive at times, I accomplished more than when I sat in pessimism trying to account for everything that could go wrong. Optimism isn't about going back to being naive—it's recognizing that while you may not get much done with this approach, at least you're doing more than nothing. When you're younger especially, there's too much time ahead to do nothing, so you have to do something.Optimism is not what exists in a vacuum on your best day, but how you're pulling through for yourself on your worst days. If joy is the feeling, optimism is the practice—it's fighting for that joy even amidst challenges. It's not about ignoring the world; it's about taking the world very seriously and knowing that functioning in this world requires tools, pouring into yourself, and pouring into community.