Member-only story

Daily Hugs? Nope. Not for Me.

Mary DeVries
2 min readMay 26, 2021

--

Reflections on habit #26

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

It’s not necessarily the best situation for me to try to hug someone unless I really know them. And I don’t really know anybody, so.

Naomi Osaka

By day #26 of a month of new habits, I was out of ideas and trying to keep any new habits simple. Hugs, I thought. Fast, easy, simple.

Turns out I don’t enjoying hugging if it feels forced, even if I’m the one doing the forcing. In the beginning of the month the only huggee available was my spouse. He was game but much as I love hugging him in general, when my motive was a tick in a check box, neither of us appreciated it much.

Towards the end of the 30 days I was able to travel to see family. Each and every one of those hugs was wonderful and precious. If you counted up all the hugs over the last week I’ve averaged out to more than a hug a day so that’s success of a sort.

Hugs are too precious to be forced. Hug those you love freely and frequently not out of a sense of obligation, habit, or duty. Treasure each hug because you don’t know when it will be your last chance.

I’m dropping hugging as a daily habit and embracing hugging as a priceless opportunity to be seized when appropriate and mutually desired.

I’m now at 19 out of 26 habits.

--

--

Mary DeVries
Mary DeVries

Written by Mary DeVries

I delight, despair and write about a life lived around the world. Fueled by Yorkshire Gold tea.

Responses (1)