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Health & Fitness

Keeping Score: Your relationships aren't about who did what for whom (or who drank the last cup of coffee without making more)

Doing things for others from your heart is the only way to do them.

I found this week that S is a scorekeeper. You know what I’m talking about. The kind of person that doesn’t do favors because it’s the right thing to do, or for the sheer joy of helping a friend to do something that comes second nature to you but not to them. Scorekeepers do things to see what they can get in return.

That’s not how I roll.

Because the universe has a way of taking care of us all, there’s no need to keep score. Your good deeds and words and thoughts will come back to you in the end--just as surely as your bad.

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With some trepidation, I ask my friend S to just do something out of the pure goodness of his heart this week. Buy a stranger a cup of coffee. Mow his neighbor’s lawn. Sweep someone else’s portion of the sidewalk. But whatever it is, do it for the very selfish reason of how amazing it will make you feel--even if it is never acknowledged. Leave the scorekeeping  to the universe.

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