the importance of being nice

eileen gallegos-lewis and polly lewis-heckel; august 2012

my parents and little brother traveled to the sunshine state to visit ross, patricio, polly, and me for the long weekend. we had so much fun eating out, and going to the beach, and relaxing and  i was reminded just how lucky i am to be best friends with my mom. 

if you have had the pleasure of meeting eileen, then you know what i mean. she is a gem. ever so stylish, so so beautiful, extremely well traveled, and hilarious as all get out. she also happens to be the nicest person on the face of this planet. she told me a little secret this weekend, one that i will share. every few months, she buys a handful of $5 gift cards: starbucks, i-tunes, whatever. and she hands them out to strangers who do something nice for her.  

it's things like that, that make me stop and think about my life and the things that i do, and say, and how i react to others. and i realize that however much energy i spend on the negative, is way too much. that's not how you make this world a better place. but you can do that by recognizing and celebrating random acts of kindness. these two feet have been all over the world, and i can honestly say, there isn't one town, city, country, or continent, that couldn't use more of that.