The universe certainly seems to have it in for your generation. Sandy Hook, Stoneman Douglas, the Las Vegas shootings, impending climate disaster, widespread political dysfunction, and not one but two economic meltdowns. Now a global pandemic has robbed you of the senior spring celebration you earned and put in doubt any plan you may have made for life after graduation.

I am an optimist. But optimism can have an uncanny way of making you feel worse. Given climate change, economic disparity, police brutality, homelessness, discrimination, gender-based violence — and all of it brought into brutally sharp relief by an unrelenting, global pandemic — being told to be hopeful feels at best delusional and at worst like a veiled threat.