It is noticeable from afar, even to complete strangers or the completely unobservant, this difference between being well-loved and newly loved. Princess has been well-loved her entire life-long. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, most of her fur has rubbed off or matted or just gone a dingy color that no amount of washing will fix. Her nose fell off sometime ago. Even her crown has lost its luster over the years. The mirror and the camera can only capture a glimpse of the beauty she once was, but the heart? It sees her only and always as beautiful still.

Children who have’t been in the world long enough to be tainted by it hold the magical ability to love all things equally, even if differently. They do not throw out the old while ushering in the new. They grasp the old and the new with unabashed gleefulness and pull them in close, because who can truly love anything they hold at a distance?

Envy often masks itself as admiration. One envies the results a skillful plastic surgeon can sculpt on any number of Kardashians or a Melanias but it is admiration, not envy, that Rosalynn Carter and Alice Walker evoke. Children can differentiate between the two while adults too often cannot. It’s the reason why children prefer the love of one grandparent over the attention of an influencer with 20 million followers.

In a celebrity-obsessed influencer-driven culture, it’s easy to get confused over that which grabs our attention versus that which prompts admiration. The sparkle of the new crown entices us. We oohhh and ahhhh over the luxury of white furs, while sometimes forgetting that being well-loved is an irreplaceable glory far more valuable.

In this New Year may we all be more childlike in our grasp of both the new and the old. May we pursue open minds with open hearts. May we not be deceived by the sparkle of the external. And may love render us all a bit shabbier by year’s end.

For that and that alone is the only lasting glory of life.