Best Habit

Good manners. I am a sucker for anyone with really, really good manners; anyone from toddlers to teenagers to adults and the elderly. Politeness is so often a thing of the past and I'm always filled with a sense of gleeful pride when I hear my twenty year old niece, Nicole, say "It was nice to meet you" after I've introduced her to someone. It seems so rare to hear younger people say things like that, but they are classic responses and everyone who I've introduced to Nicole always remembers her and asks about her often. I think it's her deadly combination of extraordinary beauty and damn fine manners, but I feel it's her manners that leave a long-lasting good impression. For me, people with good manners instantly become more attractive and people with no manners instantly morph into something akin to the creature from the black lagoon. I have one nephew whose manners are so lacking that I avoid him at all costs and no matter how hard I try to ignore his rudeness and like him, I just can't. He is now old enough to know better and I simply cannot abide his lack of decency every time I see him.

My 91 year old grandmother has impeccable manners. She is polite and sincerely kind to everyone she meets. She isn't one of these little old ladies who points out the rips in your jeans and inquires as to what you were thinking with turning your hair colour to purple. Her ability to recognise only the best in the people she meets and to respond to them with honest compliments and sweetness makes her one of the most wonderful women to walk the earth.

I have twin five year old godchildren who always greet my mother and I with a cheery "Hullo" and warm hugs. They never need to be prompted to say please or thank you, hello or goodbye. Aside from the fact that they are remarkably adorable, it is most definitely their excellent manners that wins everyone over.

Having good manners is the simplest way to be eternally beautiful.