I have this fabulously kind habit of letting people go in front of me in traffic. I smile and wave to let them slip into the lane. But when they don’t smile or wave back I turn into a pompous primadonna and loudly express some mock gratitude behind the safety of my windshield, THANK YOOOOOU, I say as we accelerate. I finally knocked off that obnoxious habit and now I just say to the non-wavers, psychically, I’m happy to help.

I’ve been thinking a lot about transactional giving these days. I’ll tweet about you if you tweet about me. They owe me a favour. You listen for five minutes to them so they’ll listen when it’s your turn to talk. Even Stevens. Transactional giving can be a beautiful commerce of support, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that interplay.

But if all of our giving is to secure our getting…then, well, it’s gross. @DanielleLaPorte (Click to Tweet!)

I think we need more gifting. Free kindness. Clean offerings. Zero expectations. Pure Love.

When I manage to gift away some kindness, I feel so much lighter, higher, loverly. I’m not carrying an expectation around with me after the gesture (expectations are such a setup for resentment.) I just wanted you to have what I could give. Because I thought you needed it. And it felt good to give it. And that’s that.

Because my entire life is not a business deal. And you know, I don’t want you to feel obligated to give back to me for any reason. I’m not a big fan of favours, I deeply dislike the whole concept of obligation. I much prefer Pure Love.

I haven’t reached Sainthood status in terms of gifting Pure Love to every human I encounter (I’ll work it into my quarterly objectives, though). I still have my attachments to what I give. I think gratitude is a form of consciousness and acknowledgement lifts up both the giver and the receiver. And I do love a great Thank You note. But I try not keep score anymore. Because my entire life is not a business deal. Because kindness is a renewable resource.

The fewer expectations we carry, the more we have to offer.

Danielle LaPorte is the creator of The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul — the book that turned into a day planner system, a top iTunes app, and an international workshop program. A Desire Map workshop happens every weekend somewhere in the world. Author of The Fire Starter Sessions and the wildly popular #Truthbomb series, Danielle is also the co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan and co-host of the Beautiful Writer’s Group podcast.

Entrepreneur Magazine calls her “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” A speaker, poet, former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, she writes weekly at DanielleLaPorte.com, where over four million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place online for kick-ass spirituality,” and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes. The Huffington Post named her Twitter feed as one of the “12 of Wisest Twitter Accounts Worth Following.” You can find her @daniellelaporte just about everywhere.