Skip the big verdict about your life when you’re starving and running on four hours of sleep. Eat, rest, then decide.

Judgment runs on a body, and a tired, unfed body reliably produces darker conclusions. At that point the thought that your whole life is going wrong feels like insight when it is largely a report on how long you have been awake and how little you have eaten. The feeling is real. Its conclusions do not deserve the authority they are claiming.

When a big verdict arrives late and hungry, write it down and promise yourself an answer tomorrow. Eat, sleep, then read what you wrote. Almost all of them look different in daylight.