Using Optionals to Validate Incoming Requests

Question

I have a use case where I am needing to validate incoming requests with a bunch of fields, and if certain ones are null or empty, I want to return a detailed response from my API letting the client know that they need to include a value for that field. I am new to Optionals, and think there may be a more efficient and streamlined way to do this.

I have an incoming request:

public class myRequest {

 private String fieldOne;  
 private String fieldTwo: 
..etc
}

And I have validations in place :

if(StringUtils.isEmpty(request.getFieldOne)){
    return new MyResponse("Please include a field one value")
}else if(StringUtils.isEmpty(request.getFieldTwo)){
    return new MyResponse("Please include a field two value")
}else if(StringUtils.isEmpty(request.getFieldThree){
     //etc..
}

Now I would think i converted the incoming requests to an optional, I would be able to validate these fields more efficiently.

Optional<MyRequest> request = Optional.of(request);
request.ifPresent((req ) ->{
    //checks if the request itself is null...but what about fields, or objects?
});
    

Some of the incoming fields are objects themselves as well. Wondering if anyone has come across this.