The Generous Exchange
How Attention to Beauty, Goodness and Excellence Restores Us and Our World
by Maria Sirois, Psy. D.
Publication Year: 2025
In a series of insightful and intimate essays, Maria Sirois explores how our ability to appreciate beauty, goodness and excellence can elevate and inspire our days, stimulating us to cultivate health in ourselves and in the natural world around us. Lyrically weaving together story and science, Dr. Sirois offers practical guidance on how to participate in a generous exchange of goodness and nourishment, providing pathways through the thickets of banality, pain, or darkness that may at times surround us. The Generous Exchange is a work of hope, grounded in the pragmatic consideration of the restoration possible for ourselves, for those living around us, and those yet to come.
Table of Contents
Foreword 1
Introduction 5
An Important Note About this Book 9
Section One: Beauty 11
The Promise of Beauty 13
A Bend in the Light 19
The Concealed Beauty of Small Moments 25
Some Little Kind of Contour 31
Shimmers 37
Section Two: Excellence 43
The Giant 45
Positive Outliers 51
A Time of New Suns 57
Courage, Tranquility and Social Comparison 63
The Galvanizing Upward Spiral of Excellence 71
Section Three: Moral Beauty (Goodness) 77
Home/Homelessness 87
Rainbows 93
Pet Peeves 99
The Light Triad of Humanity 105
Section Four: Fragility 111
The Edge of Things 113
Death/Reciprocity 119
The Death Book 125
Section Five: Practices 131
Daily Practices 133
Micro Practices 135
Weekly Practices 137
School Practices (For Educators/Staff) 139
Being Beauty/Excellence 143
Repair of the World Practices 145
A Final Note 149
Resources Cited 155
Acknowledgments 159
Praise for The Generous Exchange:
Sometimes, the world feels dark, scary, and overbearing; we may keep our heads down, afraid to glimpse one more heartbreaking failure of our kind to live decently. Some days, we don’t want to attract the wrath of others, and we can’t bear to absorb more of others’ pain. When we cringe from the shadows, the madmen, or the ghosts of our own past, we shrink the world we live in, and ourselves to fit in it. Maria Sirois’ book The Generous Exchange coaxes us to raise our heads again. Beauty and excellence draw us out and up into the best of the world, the best of each other. In carefully chosen, and beautifully assembled stories, quotes, and revelations, The Generous Exchange works on the reader the way a break in the clouds fills with a beam of golden light. Reading this book is like gazing at the illuminated vision lit by that beam. We see and appreciate details, the magnified greatness of that tree or hillside or little lake. But the beam itself beckons, like a bridge from the ground we tread to something spectacular above us. Suddenly we don’t just live in a flat, bleak world, we also live in the heavens. This was the feeling consistently evoked for me as I read this treasure—that by widening our eyes to beauty and excellence, by gathering courage or strength or heart from them, though we may walk the same paths through our days, the world we travel through becomes more extraordinary—a place truly worth cherishing.
—Michael F. Steger, Ph.D. Director of the Center for Meaning and Purpose, Colorado State University
Maria’s writing, with her careful choice of words and deliberate turns of phrase, reaches deep within us. There is no hint of arrogance in her mastery of the written word; instead, there is a natural beauty that speaks to the reader, befriends you, sees you, and nourishes you. I sincerely believe that each reader will become wiser and richer (in the truest sense of the word) by absorbing and integrating this delightful book. Whether it significantly helps heal our world is now up to us. Guided by Maria’s wisdom, I will do my best to contribute.
—Justin Robinson, Director, the Wellbeing Distillery
Maria Sirois is a healer of people and communities, and when she turns her attention and voice to healing our global village, I feel more optimistic about what lies ahead. This profound book is a gift to you and to our shared future.
—Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD, cofounder, Happiness Studies Academy, author of Happier, No Matter What
Maria Sirois’s words, stories, quotes, and practices will lift you. Reading her book will give you an appreciation you may have known existed—but didn’t know how to attain. Let Maria lead you on a journey of inner and outer discovery. There is no better guide to beauty, goodness, and excellence.”
—Dan Tomasulo, PhD, Academic Director, Spirituality Mind Body Institute, Columbia University, author of Learned Hopefulness
Although engaging with beauty involves sensory/perceptual systems, and knowledge/meaning systems, it is primarily about the heart—and this book is full of heart. It moved me deeply and I resonated to it with awe.
—Rhett Diessner, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Lewis-Clark State College; author, Understanding the Beauty Appreciation Trait: Empirical Research on Seeking Beauty in All Things
The Generous Exchange: How Attention to Beauty, Goodness and Excellence Restores Us and Our World is more than just a book; it’s an experience that invites us to see life through fresh eyes and an open heart. In a world that feels broken and overwhelming, this book is a much-needed balm, reminding us of the beauty and goodness that still exists all around us—and within us. Through a provocative blend of stories, research, and reflection, Dr. Sirois shows how the simple act of noticing can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, grounding us in the present and renewing our hope in life’s resilience. What I appreciate most, however, is that Healing Our World does more than inspire appreciation; it invites us to action. Dr. Sirois makes a powerful case for becoming stewards of beauty and goodness, urging us to let our love for what is beautiful and good guide us toward compassion, kindness, and deeper connections. It’s a moving reminder that when we protect and celebrate beauty, we find purpose and meaning—and even healing. Reading this book reshaped how I perceive the world and my role in it. It guided me to revisit my life with fresh, appreciative eyes and inspired me to make the pursuit of beauty and goodness a daily practice. I have no doubt that everyone who reads this book will feel more connected, grateful, and inspired to uncover and cultivate beauty in every moment.
—Lindsey N. Godwin, PhD, author, practitioner, possibilitizer; Academic Director, David L. Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry, Champlain College
As the vulnerabilities of our world become more prevalent and real and our sense of optimism is compromised, The Generous Exchange emerges as both a beacon of hope and a call to action. Maria Sirois offers us a beautiful gift as she invites us to explore the power of appreciating natural beauty, moral goodness and excellence as a way of igniting positive change within us and throughout our wounded world. As an author, Maria shares a tapestry of her own personal stories, and the stories of others, to illustrate everyday, often simple moments of clarity that lend themselves to a heightened understanding and recognition of beauty, goodness and excellence. She grounds these stories in research and insightful wisdom that further inspires us to embrace these important moments as a practice or ritual of appreciation and reflection that will lead to a more compassionate and unified world.
—Molly McGuigan, transformational change consultant, appreciative inquiry expert, co-author, Ditch the Ditty
In times of growing fragmentation, chaos, violence, and uncertainty, the fundamental question of how we live our lives has become more crucial than ever. With remarkable insight and inspiration, Maria Sirois delves into the enduring qualities that form the essence of our human experience—spirituality, vulnerability, wonder, imagination, love, creativity, beauty, goodness, and excellence. She skillfully identifies these elements as the delicate yet powerful ingredients that have the potential to reconnect us with the profound, mysterious, and awe-inspiring experience of being fully and meaningfully alive. I wholeheartedly recommend this book as a treasure trove of profound wisdom and captivating beauty. It stands as a testament to the enduring power of human goodness and serves as a much-needed beacon of hope and light in our challenging world.
—Dr. Pninit Russo-Netzer, PhD, researcher, leading speaker, author; head of the Compass Institute for the Study and Application of Meaning in Life, and the Resilience and Optimal Development Lab, Achva Academic College
Maria Sirois | About the Author
Maria Sirois, Psy.D. is a resilience expert, positive psychologist and international consultant, known for her authenticity, wisdom and compassion. She has spent more than three decades by the bedsides of the dying, in the boardrooms of business executives, and everywhere in-between, offering data, stories, tools and perspectives that enable us to cultivate resilience, health, wisdom and a greater capacity to lead ourselves and others well, no matter the strain or suffering of the moment. She is the author of two other books: A Short Course in Happiness After Loss (And Other Dark, Difficult Times) and Every Day Counts.
For more information about Maria’s work,
visit MariaSirois.com