The One Thing You Need to Do for Yourself Every Day
Always be kind to others—starting with the person you'll be tomorrow,
by Elizabeth Gilbert, author

I grew up on a small family farm, with plants and animals needing care in every direction, so vacations were rare. But one summer my parents convinced a neighboring farmer to tend to our goats and chickens while we got to go to the beach for a whole entire week. On the morning we departed, my mother stripped her bed, washed and dried the linens, and remade the bed perfectly, as if she were preparing it for a guest. I was baffled. Nobody was going to be visiting while we were away; why go to so much time and trouble?

 

"Oh," my mother explained, when I asked why she had bothered, "this is just a little present I'm giving my future self. This way, when she comes home all tired and worn-out at the end of her vacation, she'll have the gift of fresh, clean sheets waiting to welcome her back to her own bed."

 

"She," my mother had said—not "I." I found it striking that she felt such friendly kindness toward the person she would be. My mother's current self clearly believed that the stranger she'd become over the next week was deserving of love. This gift of a freshly made bed was not an insignificant act: It was a conscious handshake of affection across time, a way of connecting the woman of this moment to the woman of the future.

 

I have never forgotten this lesson.

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https://www.oprah.com/inspiration/elizabeth-gilbert-why-you-need-to-treat-yourself