Eat something
before you decide anything.

By four o’clock most of us are drawing conclusions.

About the job. About a person who sent a short message. About how the year is going and what it all amounts to. They arrive with real confidence, those conclusions. They feel like clarity finally turning up.

Check the conditions first. You have had a coffee and half a breakfast. You have been in the same chair since nine. The room is cold and you have not been outside since you got here. Nobody thinks well in that state, and everybody believes they do.

So eat something, and stand outside for ten minutes, and then look at it again. Some of it will still be true. A fair bit of it will have quietly withdrawn.