A hard hour deserves attention before it becomes the name of your whole life.

Bad moments have a way of expanding if left unexamined. Something goes wrong at eleven in the morning and by evening it has quietly renamed the week, the job, the relationship, and eventually the person you think you are. The mechanism is ordinary: an unprocessed feeling keeps looking for more evidence, and evidence is always available. Attending to the hour itself, while it is still an hour, keeps it from recruiting everything else.

When something lands badly, give it fifteen honest minutes rather than pushing straight on. Say what happened out loud or write it down in plain terms. Naming it small tends to keep it small.