With Saturday’s graduation in the books, some 460 Gloucester and Mathews seniors now have their high school diplomas and are set to venture out into the “real world.” The question is: What kind of world will they face?

If we were to base our predictions solely on the past few months, the future would probably be a dire one. Russia is engaged in a war to regain its empire, throwing the rest of the world into turmoil. At home, consumers are grappling with out-of-control prices for fuel and pretty much everything else. Political divisiveness is at an all-time high. Mass shootings are making the headlines on what feels like a daily basis. Covid-19 won’t go away.

It’s a scary moment in our history. Yet there have been plenty of scary moments in the past, from wars and pandemics, to runaway inflation and economic depression.

The Class of 2022 is definitely inheriting a challenging situation. But there are promising signs as well as the job market opens up and pandemic restrictions ...