When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?  Thich Nhat Hanh offers a truth many of us forget. Not being heard is painful, but being pretended to be heard is a deeper sting. The slight nod, the distracted “mm-hmm,” the vague sound that implies attention but lacks substance. We have all done it, and we have all felt it. I still remember a dinner with friends from a few years ago. It was meant to be joyful. We lau

At some point or another, life tears even the best people apart and it’s not always malicious or intentional. It’s just the way things happen. Television lied to us about adulthood. Most of us grew up watching “F.R.I.E.N.D.S.,” “How I Met Your Mother,” or, more recently, “New Girl.” And these shows promised big things for our twenties and thirties. We were supposed to move to a new city, stumble into the closest bar and suddenly find ourselves wrapped up in a group of goofy c

How to learn and grow from the things we've packed. “So,” I said, “what do you think? Are you going to keep seeing him?” I was having...