At the beginning of September, I went on a short break to Brighton. I was in between one stonemasonry job and another and keen to do something worthwhile with this break I had manufactured. I had arranged with my friends on the coast that I would go during that week, but I was laboured with indecision up until the morning I was due to leave. I had spent much of the previous day reading Stephen Grosz’s ‘The Examined Life’ – a book I had discovered more or less at the right time. It included a series of very illuminating and well-written psychotherapy case studies that went some way towards shedding some light on what I was feeling at the time. While it had many points in its favour, it wasn’t necessarily something that eased the decision-making process over whether or not to go away. I was still trying to make my mind up until the morning I was due to leave, trailing most of it behind me as I cycled to the hospital for a blood test. It was the n...