Ending a conversation well plants the seed for a clean new beginning the next time we see someone. It has an important effect on the dialogue itself. It gives conversation a balance: good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end. With such symmetry, beauty, and harmony, the ideas we shared don’t end with the conversation; they continue to percolate. In the same way, ending a conversation poorly has a retroactive effect. Even if many good feelings and ideas were exchanged, the conversation ending poorly somehow stains them. We may forget the good aspects and remember only the
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