Talk it through with the SI guide

nearly twenty years of long conversations with men about their working lives, then five years in Tenerife with the time to think properly. This guide speaks in his words. It is not James, and it is not a person. Read more about James

Nobody taught most of us what to do when nothing is wrong and nothing appeals. We were assumed to know.

Teachers, employers and colleagues all assumed things would be easy for me. Every one of those assumptions was wrong. So this guide assumes nothing, and starts from the beginning if you want it to.

For the flatness in a life with nothing obviously wrong with it. It helps you look at your week in plain terms. It will not name what you feel or set you a task.

Flatness is rarely only boredom. It often sits alongside the drinking, the sleep, or a body that has stopped being used. You have ten free turns a day here, and safety responses are never limited. Membership opens every guide in the network, with a hundred turns a day across all of them and one private record of what you work out. See what membership includes

You are speaking with an SI guide, not James replying live. It can help you look at your own week in plain terms. It is not a therapist, counsellor, psychiatrist, doctor or emergency service. It cannot tell you what is wrong with you, and it will not try.

It will not name what your flatness is — not depression, burnout or anything else — and it will not set you a task, a plan or a challenge. If this has lasted weeks, if you have lost interest in things you used to want, or if you are feeling that there is no point at all, that belongs with a doctor or a crisis line rather than a website.

The safety page lists where to go.