Today’s old-fashioned word you don’t hear too much of these days – and with good reason – is wallowing. It literally means to roll about the place, like an elephant in a mud bath, and has roots in the Indo-European proto-language, but it’s more commonly used in the metaphorical sense of indulging in an emotion.

Although it can be either kind of emotion, the good one or the bad one, I only ever hear people using the bad one, as in wallowing in self-pity, or in nostalgia, which I also consider to be an unhealthy pastime, as you can’t get back what’s gone.

I try and avoid wallowing whenever I can, and try to stay upbeat and positive. Sometimes, however, you have a bad day where you’re stuck and you can’t see your way out of it. I don’t have them often but when I do I always think of those people for whom depression and anxiety are constant companions. After all, it’s really hard to escape from your own mind, and if you try to do it using alcohol or recreational drugs then you’re simply putting off the part you eventually have to get through.

My occasional bouts of wallowing often stem from uncertainty as to future outcomes, but manifest themselves in unhelpful comparisons with the situations of other people whose grass appears greener than mine. The best way out of it I think, as the experts say, is to talk it out, bring your nearest and dearest close to you and talk to them, over the phone if you can’t do it in person.

There’s a low in wallowing, literally, but springing from it is a win too.