I have thought about that particular failure more than almost any other, because it was entirely mine, and because it is a mistake that generous people make constantly, believing it to be a virtue.

I hid my giving.

I made my sacrifices invisible, and I was proud of the invisibility, because I had been raised to believe that the highest form of generosity is the kind that seeks no credit, the left hand not knowing what the right hand does.

And there is a real beauty in that principle, in the right context.

But I applied it in the wrong context, catastrophically, for seven years, because there is a difference between anonymous charity to strangers and invisible sacrifice to the people who share your life, and I failed to see it until it had nearly destroyed me.

Charity to a stranger should be invisible, because the stranger owes you nothing and the point is the giving.