Stress levels are rising. If your life was one of those old silent movies, you'd be having your arms tied to the train tracks by a bad guy in a tall hat while the 9.15 rolled mercilessly along towards you in the distance. But then we'd have to ask what you had done to incur the wrath of the villain and, more pointedly, how could you possibly be saved. You're the star of the show. If you're not safe, there's no future for anyone. So somehow, you're going to have to escape or be rescued.Success or failure? Hero or villain? Expert or idiot? Despite our best efforts to be sophisticated, we all tend to create overly simplistic narratives about ourselves. We do one little thing well, and we punch the air. We make a perfectly understandable mistake and we slump at the table with our head in our hands. Worse still, our assessments are often inaccurate. You now seem to be cross with yourself for what you are presuming to have been an error of judgement. But it has been no such thing, as you will see yourself.