God can work with what’s left after you’ve wasted some of it. Ask the people who came back to him at forty.

There is a particular despair in thinking you have already spent the part that counted. Years in the wrong direction, a run of decisions you would not make again, and the conclusion that whatever you were for has now been used up. The arithmetic does not work like that. Plenty of people start the real thing late, with less than they would have had, and it still turns out to be the real thing.

Take stock of what is actually left rather than what you lost. Then use some of it this week on something you would be glad to have begun.