When you’re a kid and things go wrong, your mum or dad or some other relative does their best to sort it out, give you a hug, remind you you’re doing OK, and get you back on your feet. If you didn’t have this kind of family you’ve missed out badly, but at least you may have learnt to keep yourself going without outside help. Because good parents back off slowly as you get older anyway. They know that if they don’t you’ll never learn to get back on your feet after a knock.

And you do have to be able to get yourself back on your feet. Imagine you’re physically injured and need to learn to walk again. The hospital fixes you up to a machine that supports your weight while you move your legs. That might sound good, but eventually you’ll need to walk without the machine and you won’t be able to unless you’ve learnt to support your own body. Other people holding you up is not the same thing as you taking your weight on your own two feet.

You’ll take a few emotional knocks in life – we all do. If you’re lucky, there will be friends and family on hand to help you recover. But in the end you have to do it for yourself. All they can do is give you a bit of back-up. And actually, once you realise you have to do it yourself, you realise that you don’t need anyone else at all.

That’s a much safer way to go through life, isn’t it? Knowing that you can pick yourself up when you get knocked down. Friends and family are wonderful, but it’s reassuring to know that while you might want their support, you don’t actually need it.

It’s a bit like giving up smoking (stay with me here…). Lots of people chew nicotine gum or wear patches when they try to quit. The ones who succeed are the ones who recognise that the gum and the patches are just there to make it a bit easier, they won’t do your giving up for you. Only you can do that. Once you grasp that, you no longer need the patches and the gum.

So don’t sit around waiting for someone else to make it all alright, or feeling that you’re hard done by if you don’t get support, or wishing your friends would give you a bit more help, or wondering why everyone else is letting you down. If you don’t get back on your feet, the only one letting you down is you. It’s tough, but it’s true. The sooner you learn it, the sooner you can get back on your feet.