Give like the sun

This is the week's steepest climb. Not the stranger who might disappoint you, but the specific person who already has — repeatedly, with no sign of changing. The vendor who never returns the courtesy. The colleague you've carried for a year. Every reasonable instinct says stop. You've run the experiment; the result is in.

Seneca pointed past the ledger to a bigger model: "I ought to imitate the gods, those noblest disposers of all events, who begin to bestow their benefits on those who know them not, and persist in bestowing them on those who are ungrateful for them" (Of Benefits VII.XXXI, Stewart). Think about how the sun works. It doesn't audit the field before it rises. It doesn't shine on the deserving crop and skip the weeds. It pours out the same light on everyone, and the giving costs it nothing of itself.

That's the keystone. The biggest version of you gives the way the sun shines — not because the recipient earned it, but because giving is simply what you do. The taker can't diminish that any more than a thankless field can dim the sun.

You're not keeping score because you've stopped needing the score to come out even. The giving was always the whole reward.