An open evening can be enjoyed without being converted into an opportunity.

Free time has a way of being annexed. As soon as an evening is empty, something arrives to fill it: an errand, a course, a person you should catch up with, a small guilt about wasted hours. Underneath that sits an assumption that time only counts when it produces something. An evening spent doing nothing in particular is not a gap in your life; it is some of your life.

Leave one evening this week genuinely unassigned, and resist improving it. Notice what you actually do when nothing is expected of the hours. That is usually worth knowing.