t's hurricane season. I've watched several systems come together moving off the shores of Africa and across the Atlantic, spinning north away from the Caribbean. Each time it's seemed they might hit Bermuda square, and each time they've dissipated or drifted away. Meanwhile, the Gulf Coast of the United States has not been so fortunate.

Is it chance, fate, or karma that directs such storms into one person's life but away from another? Chance is the force that makes things happen in a particular way without any apparent cause. Some might think of it as the degree of probability that such a storm would come to pass ? putting a kind of scientific reason to something that just seems to have no reason at all. So, when a storm comes, it defies comprehension. Fate is the force or principle that determines events, so when a storm comes, it is just inevitable that it should happen.

Karma is the Hindu and Buddhist philosophy indicating the influence of a person's behaviour in previous lives upon the circumstances of his or her current life. Thus, if a hurricane blows one's house down, the person brought it on him or herself by misbehaving in a previous life, but if the hurricane suddenly turns away and spares one's house, that is a product of previous virtue ? a kind of zero sum conservation of goodness and evil.

What about the little things?

As I walk along the street, suddenly one person out of the many bodies passing by, looks up, meets my eyes, and smiles. That smile sends a warm wave. Coming in the midst of a dominant disconnect, it feels shocking, disturbingly nice. Did I get lucky? Was it meant to be? When I was Napoleon, had I smiled at someone?

Or do we create our own circumstances in this life? Can I send that warm wave over my own body by putting a smile on my own face? If I smile first at people, will they smile back? If I use affirming language with my spouse, will he or she stop finding fault in me?

When I meet with couples I often find them prosecuting one another, building their cases against one another. As they proceed, they express hurtful and negative things, and sometimes I find myself holding up a hand as if to say, "Stop." Then, I suggest that they try something else, just to see what might happen. The experiment suggested is to run just one week, and that's so they know there will be an end to it. I'm not asking them to suddenly become another person forever. So, for just one week they are to resist every temptation to find fault or to prosecute their case against their spouses and in the place of each complaint, they are to express one simple affirmation.

An affirmation is an expression of appreciation or admiration. It is a statement of positive regard. Affirmations point to other people's strengths. Affirmations say what is good about another.

Affirmations also express what one person likes about another. To make an affirmation is not really to just thank someone for something; in order to thank someone, you have to first experience being given to in some way, but an affirmation usually comes at the initiation of a person. That is, instead of waiting for the other person to do or say something nice, the person engaging in an affirmation makes the first step. They go out of their way to openly appreciate and admire the other.

It breaks ice. It sends a ripple across the still pond. It may feel shocking, but it's also like putting a smile on one's own face. Every marriage, like every life, has problems, shortcomings, and disappointments, but every person can choose how they will respond. When they do, they help to create the very life they experience.