Mia smiled. She thought of the threadbare sweater she’d been reluctant to discard, and how, when she finally let it go, it made space in her wardrobe — and in her head — for clothes she never would have chosen otherwise. Newness, she realized, is an invitation to different habits, different small pleasures.

They wrote small rituals that might help: taking the same fifteen-minute walk around a new block for a month, learning three facts about a new co-worker before forming an opinion, photographing the same window at noon every day for a week. These were practical acts to slow the adrenaline and seed curiosity.

End of Part 1.