Laughing until you can’t breathe with your friends is not a waste of time. It might be the point.

Time with friends gets filed as leftover, the thing you do once the important business is handled. It is worth asking what the important business is for. An hour of helpless laughter is not a break from your real life. It is one of the few parts that will still be obviously worth having when you look back at this year.

Protect one evening this week for people, with nothing to achieve in it. Treat it as fixed the way practice is fixed, rather than as the first thing to cancel.