Not every storm is about you. Some just pass through town. Stay inside and let it.

Hard weather arrives in other people’s lives and you happen to be standing in it. A mood, a decision made above you, a bad stretch in a family: not all of it is a message about you, and reading it as one keeps you out in the rain longer than necessary. Not everything asks for a response. Some things only ask to be waited out.

Before you take something personally this week, ask whether you are the subject or the bystander. If the honest answer is bystander, protect your own evening and let the weather move through. You can be kind without volunteering to absorb it.