Our culture of consumption and accomplishment is built on self-protection and defensiveness, on buying what we want and selling what we have to in order to prove ourselves. Love is built on the vulnerability of giving and receiving freely. Much of our busyness, distraction, purchasing, and entertainment protects us from admitting our vulnerability, our dependence. Much of our modern culture protects us from love. But if we are willing to move at a slower pace, if we are willing to shed the trappings of achievement and accumulation, we will find a way of being in the world that is vulnerable and open, willing to receive whatever gifts might come our way, without making demands, without needing to possess or achieve.

Away from meritocracy, the gifts we give matter more than accomplishments.