A palliative – from the Latin for “to cloak” – is something that serves to soothe or alleviate pain. As I used it today: “I spent several hours on a strategy for managing my now-reduced cash flow – a Plan A, a Plan B, and a Plan C (optimistic, realistic, and worst-case). This, I knew, was necessary not just for practical reasons, but also as a psychological palliative for my recent misfortunes.”