A rough week is weather. Don’t file it under climate.

Bad stretches feel permanent while you are inside them, and the mind is quick to turn a run of hard days into a statement about how your life is. Weather and climate behave differently. One is what is happening now, the other is the long pattern, and mistaking the first for the second turns a difficult week into evidence against yourself.

Give it a time frame before you give it a meaning. Ask whether this has been true for months or only since Tuesday. If the honest answer is Tuesday, you are allowed to simply get through the week without drawing conclusions from it.