The quiet work of making people comfortable deserves more credit than the visible work of impressing them.

Impressive effort announces itself, which is most of its appeal. The other kind is built to go unnoticed: the spare chair fetched before anyone needed it, the guest steered away from a painful subject, the pause held open so the shy person could speak. Because it succeeds by being invisible, it collects less thanks than the elaborate dessert, though it is what people remember feeling.

Watch for that work in someone else this week and name it to them out loud. Then try doing a piece of it yourself, accepting from the start that nobody is likely to notice.