In just over a month, assuming everything continues to go to plan, Whitney and I are going to have a baby. A boy. Our first child. Which is an extraordinary sentence to write because I am still not entirely convinced that anyone has checked whether I am suitably qualified. There appears to be remarkably little vetting involved. You spend longer proving your identity when trying to log into your supermarket saver account. And yet, sometime very soon, somebody is apparently going to hand me an...

Somewhere along the way, we managed to make wellbeing stressful. Which, when you think about it, is quite an achievement. Mindfulness was supposed to help us stop striving quite so much. It was supposed to teach us to notice our lives rather than constantly judge them. To breathe. To pay attention. To accept that not every moment needs improving, measuring, optimising or turning into a personal development project. And then we got hold of it. Now we have mindfulness apps. Meditation streaks....

We have become deeply suspicious of anything that takes time. If a business has not taken off within a year, we assume the idea must be wrong. If a fitness plan has not transformed our body within six weeks, we lose interest. If a child is not reading, sleeping, speaking or behaving according to some imaginary timetable, we worry that something has gone awry. We plant a garden in spring and feel vaguely cheated when it does not resemble Chelsea Flower Show by June. We have been taught to...