What's yours stays yours

Walk back through the week. The coworker who takes credit. The teammate you can't trade in. The relative who only calls when he needs something. One thread runs through all of it: you kept giving, and you stopped making their response the price of admission. That's the shift. Not pretending ingratitude doesn't sting, but refusing to let it shrink you into someone who only gives when the receipt comes back signed.

Marcus, closing a thought on people who wrong us, left a line that does the same work for people who simply take: "If a man has done wrong the harm is his own. But perhaps he has not done wrong" (Meditations 9.38, Long). Two doors, both freeing. Maybe the ingratitude is real, and then the loss is his — a person who can't receive a kindness is carrying the actual poverty. Or maybe you misread it, and there was no wrong at all. Either way, it isn't yours to haul around.

You've spent the week building a generosity that doesn't depend on applause. Keep it. The waiter, the warehouse, the kitchen, the kid at your table — give to all of them on your own terms.

Next week turns to something harder than being unthanked: being actually wronged. The footing you've built here — what's mine stays mine — is exactly what you'll stand on.