i’m not getting discouraged.

Discouragement turns up whether or not it was invited, usually late in the day, usually with a very confident summary of your entire life attached. The mistake is not the mood. Moods arrive.

The mistake is signing what it hands you. Nothing has to be decided at nine at night — not the resignation letter, not the message that ends the friendship, not the verdict that none of this was ever going to work. All of it can wait for a morning, and mornings have a way of returning a different figure.