Next time you have a performance review at work, why not try this? When your boss asks how you plan to “develop” and “progress” over the next five years look them in the eye and reply: “I don’t need to develop myself, thanks. I’m happy as I am.”

You won’t, of course, because this would be like asking for your P45 and a black bin bag to clear your desk. It would be tantamount to saying: “I’m a loser.”

We live in what the author Svend Brinkmann calls a “culture of social acceleration” and in such a world standing still, being content and not particularly feeling the need to constantly “grow” is almost heretical. What’s required in an age of perpetual change is to keep