Mid-move, the partner who wants it, the bad situation, the first job, retirement, the baby, and when it's more than the hum

Some situations need the argument adjusted. Here are the ones I'd expect, each in turn.

You've already committed. The offer's accepted or the contract's exchanged, and this book has arrived too late to be a question and too early to be a comfort. Do the Thursday question anyway, for the thing you're moving into. Whatever it shows, you've now got a list of what will and won't be different, and that's the list that keeps the season from spoiling into blame. Then read chapter 19 in the first week, not the third month. The season is the moment to set up the noticing and the variety, and most people set them up never. If you find you're going round the decision itself, whether to pull out, an earlier book in this series, Pick one, is about that loop and this one isn't.

Your partner is the one who wants it. Then the Thursday question is a conversation and not a page, and it's a kinder one than "I don't want to move". Ask them to describe their Thursday in the new place, and describe yours, and look at the two together for facts. Often one of you has a cause and the other has a hope, and that's a real difference worth finding before the van comes. If the same move has come up every year in different clothes, that's not about the house, and The same argument again is the book.

You're in a genuinely bad situation. A job that's harming you, a home that's unsafe, a partner who is unkind or controlling. Chapter 2 said it and I'll say it again. Those are causes, the change is a fix, and nothing in this book is a reason to stay and improve your outlook. Go. If there's fear in the relationship, the NHS has a page on domestic abuse with the national helpline on it, and that comes before any question about Thursdays.

You haven't had a first job or home yet. Then some of the next things on your list are the ordinary first ones, and getting a first job or a first flat removes causes you can name, not having money and not having a door. Those are fixes. What this book is warning about is the second and third, where the first didn't end the hum and the next one is expected to. Watch for that, and you'll have saved yourself the three-flat version of chapter 1.

Retirement is the next thing. It's on Luhmann's list of events, and the honest finding is that its effects vary and don't follow from how good it's supposed to be. The Thursday question is unusually useful here, because a retired Thursday at four is a real thing that can be written and most people don't write it. If the page has facts on it, the walk, the grandchild, the thing you'll build, it's a fix for the causes of the working week. If the page is empty apart from "not working", the hum will be there at four with more room.

The baby is the next thing. Chapter 14 is the whole answer, and the one line I'd repeat is that a child is a fix for an absence of meaning and not for a level, and that you should write the Thursday with the three a.m. in it.

It's more than the hum. If the flatness has been there most of the day, most days, for a fortnight or more, if you've lost interest in things you used to enjoy, if you're sleeping badly and can't get going, the NHS lists those as symptoms of depression and says to see a GP. Depression makes every next thing look like the answer and makes the life in hand look worse than it is, and the fix for that isn't on the listings. Get seen first. The book will keep.