A peaceful life usually looks dull from the outside. That’s how you know it’s working.

Steadiness does not photograph well. The things that make a week calm, sleep, routine, a few refusals, nobody turning up unannounced, produce almost nothing worth telling anybody about, which is precisely why they work. Interesting weeks are often interesting because something went wrong. A life that looks flat from outside can be very comfortable to live inside.

Resist measuring your week by how good a story it makes. Ask instead whether you slept, ate properly and had one unhurried hour. If so, the dullness is doing its job.