Bob Schwartz

How does it help to think about how difficult things are? How does it help to think about how other people think about how difficult things are?

Each morning, each day, I try to maintain a balance. It is challenging but it is a challenge worth taking. This is not the first time in my life and in recent decades that things have not gone so well. Yet that must be balanced against the reality that life, hopefully with many benefits, goes on. Covid, for those who haven’t relegated it to ancient forgotten history, was one of those times.

The headline today in the Wall Street Journal and the accompanying report is hard to ignore. Does that mean I am obliged to pass it on? No, but it does help to validate whatever perspective we have on the current state of things. You are not alone in what you think, and if you hear someone taking credit for how unprecedentedly great everything is, you are entitled to reject that and him.

Consumer Sentiment Hits Lowest Level on Record
By Matt Grossman
April. 10, 2026

Consumer sentiment fell in April to the lowest level recorded in the 70-plus-year history of the University of Michigan’s survey, evidence of Americans’ concerns that the Iran war will hit the domestic economy.

The survey’s preliminary April reading came in at 47.6, down from 53.3 in March. That was worse than analysts had expected.

The previous low point, 50, was recorded in June 2022, when the U.S. was facing searing inflation.

Now if that news is sobering for the moment, please go back, to the extent your circumstances allow, to counting your blessings, loving others, and being awed by wonders. When breakfast talk devolves, as it will, I look across the table at beauty, take a bite of egg and toast, wash it down with hot coffee, and gladly live.