You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.

— Robert Louis Stevenson

GRATITUDE

WHAT THIS MEANS

Handing something over can be done out of duty, guilt, or the wish to be seen well, and none of that requires any feeling at all. The reverse does not hold: caring about someone always shows up as something surrendered, whether time, money, attention, or your own preference about how the evening goes. That makes generosity an unreliable sign of love and its absence a fairly reliable sign of the lack of it.

Look at what your affection has actually cost you lately. If the answer is nothing, treat that as information rather than an accusation. Give one thing this week that you will genuinely miss.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Where have you given generously without any real warmth behind it?

MORE IN TRUST, LOYALTY & RELATIONSHIPS

Free, with nothing to buy inside it.