The next what-if

Find the piece of paper from chapter 1, with the three predictions on it. If any of them has come due, mark it with a tick or a cross. If one of them still has a step you haven't taken, take it today or write down the day you will. Whatever is left goes to six o'clock.

That's most of what this book has to teach, and you've just done it in a couple of minutes.

The next what-if is probably not far off, perhaps later today. It will feel, as they always do, like the exception, the one that really does need thinking through at length. It will carry the old feeling that to let it go would be careless. You now know where that feeling comes from and what its record is like.

Ask your one question. If there's a step, take it, and know that you've done what a prepared person does. If there isn't, give the thing its appointment and go back to whatever's in front of you, whether that's a meal or a person or a piece of work. The thing you were worrying about hasn't happened yet, and most of the time it won't.

You'll still have concerns, because your life has people and things in it that you don't want to lose. I hope you keep every one of them. The rounds are what you can give up. You can stop paying for disasters in advance, and spend the time on the ordinary days you're living through now.