Daniel Jalkut says that in your forties “you feel more competent, and empowered than you’ve ever been, yet also more despondent”. My recollection, as I stare down the barrel of the fifty coming my way in October, is that I’ve had bursts of competency eventually smothered by the pressure, very little in the way of empowerment, and an increasing despondency as certainty grows that the second half of my life looks pretty dire.