My Mom is so disappointed that my kids are not active, do not goto protests. She wants to leave a better world for them but is no longer able to help make that happen, so needs to see her grandchildren turn the world around.

If we can't believe good things can happen, then what would be the point anyway...

Two things:

1. Being kind to others, making their lives a bit less painful and hopefully a bit more joyful.
2. Spite. Opting out would be making the lives of the bastards who are inflicting the bullshit on the rest of us too easy.

I don't expect things to get better within my lifetime and I'm not yet 40. All that I've witnessed in my lifetime is an accelerating decline in financial stability for people who work for a living and continual degradation of the quality of basic goods that people are able to afford.

I managed to not get totally fucked during the pandemic after having been set back probably about a decade and a half by The Recession. Now, my field is getting hit by regular layoffs that don't actually benefit anyone but make the line go up. Shit is not looking good in the near future.

Exactly, in times of doom, you have to believe and hope, much more than ever before.