Two Kinds of Minds

For the past few days, I’ve been learning about habits of the mind. Unfortunately, my lessons are occurring in real-time— in all the unglamorous and sometimes aggravating details of my life as a wife, mother and owner of two Labrador retrievers—one of whom inspired this essay. Although I imagined myself to be intentional about nearly everything I do, something had escaped my scrutiny. A rogue habit reigned over a covert kingdom of dashed hopes; it was my habit of selfish expectations.

We all hav...