Leading the household
Something is being stripped — a family's trust, a parent's authority, an old arrangement that can no longer hold. The hardest counsel in the book applies: undertake nothing. Ultimatums, rescue campaigns, dramatic house meetings all feed what they fight; the bed's legs are splitting, and pressing your weight down helps nobody. What you can do is rest on the broad earth — the mountain survives only by generosity toward those below it. Lead by giving: patience to a difficult teenager, care to an ageing parent, steadiness to whoever is frightened. Refuse bitterness its recruits. Distinguish, too, what is actually dying — often an old form of the family, not the family itself.