We have a set of slippers we keep on our back porch so that we can easily go outside without having to grab our shoes. A few weeks ago, I was showing my friend, Aman, our backyard, and when we were coming back inside, he noticed that I turned around, removed my slippers so that they were pointing outwards, and step backwards through the doorway into the house.

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

“So I don’t have to turn my slippers around when I want to go outside again,” I responded.

“You have to turn them around one way or another,” he noted.

I shrugged. “That’s true,” I responded.

He paused for a second, then said, “I guess you’re paying it forward when you do it that way.”

I laughed. “That’s a nice way to think about it.”