wasn’t depressed – rather, I was overwhelmed by tickboxery. With more choice than ever before in the way we live, travel and work comes endless opportunity, but also an insidious obligation to ‘tick off’ everything. Tickboxery is a way of skimming the water, clocking up as much as you can without ever delving too deep. You travel to a city for thirty-six hours; read a book while listening to a podcast. The act of getting things done – a sort of flimsy, surface-level productivity – has become more important than the doing. (Shout out to Shakespeare here, who reminds us: ‘Things won are done;38
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