When you have completed [the reflection of casting your memory back across your whole life and bringing to mind two things that you did that were good], look very carefully at the quality of these situations, at what is comprised in a moment of goodness picked out of a lifetime of words and actions. Almost everyone who is able to remember such deeds in this meditation discovers them to be remarkably simple. They are rarely the deeds one would put on a resume. For some people a moment of goodness was simply the one when they told their father before he died that they loved him, or when they flew across country in the midst of their busy life to care for their sister’s children as she was healing from a car accident. One elementary school teacher had the simple vision of those mornings when she held the children who were crying and having a hard day. In response to this meditation someone once raised her hand, smiled, and said, “On crowded streets when we get to parking spaces at the same time, I always give the parking space to the other person.” That was the good deed in her life.
Jack Kornfield
from A Path with Heart; A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life
Chapter: Did I Love Well?