Your dog greets you like you’ve been gone a year. Let someone be that happy to see you.

Receiving somebody’s delight is harder than it sounds. A dog does it without any complication: gone twenty minutes, treated like a returning soldier, no attempt to moderate it for dignity. Most of us learn to deflect that from people, with a joke or a shrug, because being obviously glad to see somebody feels excessive. Letting it land is the actual skill here.

Accept it next time somebody is pleased you walked in. Then try the other side, and greet one person this week like you are genuinely glad rather than merely present.