A lover I had for a very brief time complained I wasn’t good at accepting gifts. Pride, he noted. About that, he was right.
And yet a life without pride in yourself and your actions? Lack pride and you become a muddied doormat. So here’s the theme that surfaces over and over in all our lives — where to find the sweet spot of balance.
Hard things have a way of bending you, and that bending can go either way, I tell my daughters. In this long cold spring, that sentiment runs deeply.
cherry blossom petals
blown by the spring breeze against
the undried wall
— Masaoka Shiki