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May 16, 2022

“Love is giving your heart without expectation.”

One of my favorite shows is “This Is Us.” You’re almost guaranteed to shed a tear each and every episode. A recent episode involved going over the life story of a character that sort of got short shrift over1 the years – Miguel.

There’s a scene in which a middle age Miguel is receiving good advice from his mom. She offers this great one-liner: “Love is giving your heart without expectation.” Followed by another line that essentially boils down to “stop and smell the roses.” Meaning “enjoy the small things in the sea of life that contains a whole lot of suffering.”

It’s hard to remember to stop and smell the roses. One trick I’ve found is to take a mundane activity that I do daily – mine is raising my window shades in the morning – as a trigger to think about something small from the prior day that I really enjoyed. Training myself to find something small to appreciate after-the-fact with the hopes that I fully appreciate it in the moment when I’m experiencing it…