So maybe it's not that you've been cheated out of an unlimited supply of time; maybe it's almost incomprehensibly miraculous to have been granted any… - Oliver Burkeman

Or perhaps you've tethered your self-esteem to the most crazy-making standard of all, 'realizing your potential' – which means you'll never get to rest, because how can you ever be sure there's not a little more potential left to realize?

Ask yourself whether you are happy', observed the philosopher John Stuart Mill, 'and you cease to be so.' At best, it would appear, happiness can only be glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, not stared at directly.

For a civilisation so fixated on achieving happiness, we seem remarkably incompetent at the task.