May the good Lord save me from perpetual whiners; people who can be counted on to tell you how bad everything is. You don't dare ask how they feel or how they sense the world is going unless you have an afternoon to spend listening to a catalogue of human miseries. I once knew a woman who called me if she happened to feel good, because she always felt bad the day after she felt good and wanted me to know how rotten things were about to become. But may the Lord also preserve me from perpetual optimists, whose smile is pasted on like singers in a show chorus. People who insist everything is fine all the time may be sitting on a supply of industrial strength anger, disguised with a grin.

Nobody is on top of the world every day. Every human being I know has ups and downs. I do, and so do you;…