Without Mike, I honestly don’t know where I’d be.

I’m not talking about what my life would be like, I’m talking about WHERE I’d be.

I’m directionally challenged.

I can get lost in shopping malls and grocery stores and parking lots.

We’ve been taking the same Greenbelt path for 8 weeks, yet the other day I inexplicably began heading down an offshoot path (which clearly led to a dead end).

Sometimes, when we’re leaving a store or restaurant, Mike deliberately hangs back just to see which way I’ll go. I always (at least I’m consistent) begin heading in the wrong direction. Mike is consistently amused.

I once got lost in a Mexican desert with my mother and aunt. We were following a circular trail. A trail I’d run every day for the previous 6 weeks. Yet when I had relatives in my care, I somehow deviated from the path and took us on the “scenic” route. I pretended we weren’t lost. (We were lost).

I can get lost underwater: Once I was diving in Micronesia and I began following the wrong group of divers. My group was clad entirely in black wetsuits, yet I started swimming after a group of tourists all wearing matching hot pink dive gear. I didn’t notice. Mike had to swim after me and point me back in the right direction. I pretended like it was no big deal. (This was before I’d seen “Open Water”).

I can get lost in the air: An ex-stepfather was a pilot. For a year he trained me to fly a J3 Cub. “Which way is the airport?” he’d ask. I’d randomly point in a direction. I was never randomly correct.

Needless to say, corn mazes do not amuse me.

The only place I ever want to get lost is in a bookstore. Sadly, their exits are clearly marked.

Mike, on the other hand, was born with a GPS implanted in his brain. Sometimes, when he’s giving me directions to a location, he’ll use terms like, “head north” or “on the southwest corner.”

And I have to remind him: “I don’t speak compass.”

Of course, I have other strengths.

I can spell. I understand the differences between than and then, further and farther. (Okay, the latter pair only after my editor explained it to me). But you get my point.

While Mike keeps me from getting irrevocably lost, I’ve saved him from advertising “newly remolded” houses or telling people about events that are “open to the pubic.”

This is important stuff.

However, Mike is constantly improving his craft. He writes, he learns, he requires less of my intervention to curb his remolded pubic errors.

But how do you fix someone who is directionally challenged? How do I improve? How do I get a GPS implanted in MY brain?

I see no cure for my navigational deficiencies.

But that’s probably because I’m looking in the wrong direction.

What’s in it for me?

This is the mentality with which I approached situations for a long time. What’s in it for me? What am I going to get out of it? I didn’t know that this was my approach, but it was. Everything was bartered. Transactional.

And the “What’s in it for me” mentality is far from unique.

Maybe this makes sense in our society, given how we raise kids into adulthood.

• Do X and you’ll get Y.
• Eat your vegetables so you can enjoy dessert.
• Complete a chore, receive a reward.
• Get a job to earn money.

We’re always focused on the reward. What’s in it for me?

We see advertising play into this mentality constantly. For five easy payments of $29.95, there’s something out there that will make your life better and solve all your problems.

When we have this approach, it becomes invasive and worms its way into every aspect of our lives.

Example: Relationships.

It took a lot of growing up before I realized the fault in this type of thinking. I saw relationships, even my marriage, as battles to be fought. Me versus you. Always keeping score.

This is not the way to foster a healthy relationship, but it works great if you want to breed resentment and anxiety.

My antidote for this line of thinking came in the form of accepting two truths:

1) I can only control MY actions, behavior, and reactions.
2) I am responsible for my happiness. No one else.

From there I realized that I needed to move from “What’s in it for me?” to “Give first.”

No more keeping score. No searching for blame to place. Instead, taking full and fierce personal responsibility.

When it comes to negative, toxic relationships, well, life is too short for that. But for the true friendships, the meaningful partnerships, and the people in our lives for whom we feel constant gratitude, the answer is to give first and without expectation.

Embracing this mentality is freeing (no more worrying if you’re winning or getting what’s due). It’s satisfying (so much more than focusing on that perceived reward).

And interestingly, practicing the Give First approach has allowed me to clearly identify the relationships in my life, which merit all the effort I can muster (versus the negative ones, for which life is too short).

The good ones, the important ones, range from my relationships with my husband and children, to the friendships I have with people seldom seen, but I know that if we ran into each other, we could talk for an hour with genuine interest and concern.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably one of those people.

So many questions and thoughts race through my mind in the course of a day.

I want to look at them and know them and understand them.

To identify when I’m not asking the right question and, though it will take introspection and the difficulty of tackling bad habits and negative behaviors, change the narrative for the better.