Parking with Dan
About twenty-five years ago, I was driving with a colleague to a local conference. As we approached the hotel entrance, I noticed an open parking spot near the front door.
“There’s a spot,” I said, pointing to the right. He drove past it.
A few seconds later, another one appeared. He drove past that one, too. Then I pointed to a third. “There’s a spot.” Without the slightest hesitation, Dan replied, “I’ll leave that for someone else.”
And he calmly parked much farther away. As we walked to the entrance, I asked about that statement.
Dan explained that it was a practice of his. Whenever possible, he left the closest parking spaces for someone else. Perhaps there was someone carrying packages, or struggling with luggage and young children. Maybe someone was tired or had difficulty walking. Whatever the reason, Dan left the closer spots for those who simply needed it more than he did.
I nodded. It made sense, so I adopted that practice for myself that day.
I had hired Dan as a psychologist for the nonprofit agency where we worked with adolescents and families in the community. It was his first professional position after completing his PhD in clinical psychology.
He was fifty years old. It remains one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve ever had.
When Dan was a young man in college, he found himself asking a question many people ask but few act upon: “Where can I find meaning?” Someone answered, “Go east.”
So he did.
He left college and traveled to Tibet, where he spent years studying wisdom traditions, meditation, and the art of bookmaking. By the time I met him, he had returned to the United States carrying something difficult to define but easy to recognize. He had a quiet steadiness about him. He moved through the world differently than most.
Throughout our years working together, we had many conversations.
When I told him I struggled to quiet my mind, he suggested a simple breathing practice. He asked me where I felt most peaceful. At the time, my daughter was an infant. I told him about sitting in a rocking chair in the dim light while she slept nearby.
“Start there,” he said.
And so I did. That became my place. Not a meditation cushion or a retreat center. A rocking chair beside a sleeping baby.
Like leaving the closest parking spaces for others.
Over time, that simple practice expanded into dozens of small acts of consideration. Not dramatic gestures. Just quiet awareness of the people around me and the people yet to arrive.
Dan and I were together exploring neurofeedback for our clients when news of the attacks on the Twin Towers reached us. I remember walking out of my office and seeing staff members crying as they tried to tell us what had happened.
My first thought was, “What have we done?”
I meant it in the broadest human sense. How had we arrived here? What conditions had brought us to this moment? What responsibility do we all carry for the world we create together?
Spending time with Dan always expanded our view of life and enlarged our circle of belonging. We shared an awareness that our lives are connected in ways we often overlook. Simple yet profound connections that quietly shape the quality of life for those around us.
After we both left the agency, we continued to meet occasionally at Starbucks.
We would catch up on our practices, our work, and our lives. Yet somehow the conversation always returned to ordinary things. A simple question or an observation about the world and our place in it.
Then Dan would say something small. Just a sentence. I learned to pay attention to how his gentle comment reverberated through my being.
Sometimes long stretches of silence would settle between us. Neither of us rushed to fill them. We would sit with our tea, each following our own reflections until one of us felt we had something worth sharing. Or not.
I came to appreciate these simple statements which would often unfold over weeks or months, perhaps gradually becoming another lived practice.
The older I get, the more I realize that wisdom often arrives quietly. Not through grand teachings, but through regular moments with ordinary people who have learned how to pay attention.
A parking space. A deep breath in the midst of tragedy. The pleasure of a perfectly placed rocking chair. A slow conversation over tea.
Dan eventually moved across the country in search of a slower life. I was happy for him. It seemed exactly right.
The funny thing is, I never miss Dan. Not because he wasn’t valued in my life. Quite the opposite. I thoroughly enjoyed our exchanges, our clinical collaboration, and all we discovered together.
Those people who are a beneficial presence in our lives somehow remain present.
I still leave the closest parking spaces for someone else. And when my passenger points out that I missed a few spots by the entrance, I smile.
Because Dan is right there with me. An invisible reverberation of a lesson well modeled.
Peace be with you and with all. No exceptions.
HeartWarming
News
In Frontiers in Neuroscience (2026), researcher M.J. Kim explored why helping others is so good for us. Rather than looking only at psychology, this study looked at what happens in the brain. They found that prosocial actions, even very small ones, are associated with less depression, less anxiety, less loneliness, and greater meaning in life. One of the conclusions is beautifully simple: our nervous systems appear to regulate more effectively when we are in healthy relationship with others.