A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Having nothing to hide is a quiet and constant comfort that people underestimate until they lose it. Anything you are concealing takes maintenance: the story to keep straight, the person to avoid, the small dread when a certain name appears. Clearing that costs you something once and then stops costing anything at all. The contentment is not dramatic, which is why it gets traded away cheaply.

If something is sitting on you, deal with it this week rather than managing it for another year. The relief afterwards tends to be out of all proportion to the size of the admission.