My perpetual inspirational calendar for May 10 — which was Mother’s Day — contained this quote from Daniel L. Reardon: “In the long run, the pessimist may be right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.”

Right about now we could use a little more of the optimist than the pessimist. Each day brings bad news with no sign of let up, even as states begin to reopen and the stock market holds its own. Indeed, it’s hard to be the optimist on the trip when the pessimist in us is regularly experiencing “the dark night of the soul” at 3 a.m., tossing, turning and hyperventilating — terrified for our ill loved ones and our own mortality; wondering if our jobs are in danger or if we’ll get another and, in any event, how we’ll pay the bills; despairing that the things, places and people we cherish will never be the same.